Shadow
by malintzin
Summary: Marcus Daniels is dead and gone, but the dark force is still haunting Audrey Nathan. In a crazier and crazier world in which AI make cities fly, ninjas and mystical gangs run around the streets of New York, people with alien genes and powers emerge from sudden cocoons, she's taken for dead and must claw her way out of the world of ghosts and shadows.
1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE: FADING AWAY**

 _ **Oregon coast, summer of 2015**_

The crash of the waves woke her up. Audrey cracked an eye open and rolled on her back with a groan. Her whole body was aching, from head to toes. Her brain was on fire, the pain almost blinding.

 _What the hell?_

One moment she was on her surf board, one moment she was lying on a beach, quite not sure how she got there.

With another groan, she straightened up and checked her body, in search of any injury. She found nothing, no gash, no broken bone. But the pain was there, unforgiving. Hopefully, there was no internal bleeding, which wouldn't be a surprise given how the waves rolled her back to the shore, tearing her board away in process. Shaking her head, as if the movement would make the pain go away, she finally took in her surroundings. Nobody around. A lone seagull whirled around in the sunset, its angry cry getting more and more insistent with each swirl around her.

"Sorry about that, dude, but I'm not seagull food yet," she mumbled as she looked for her board and the rest of her gear she'd left on the beach-backpack, clothes, cellphone…

Nothing. No board. No stuff. Just an empty beach and an annoying bird.

"Great, just great," Audrey groaned.

It was bad enough that a rookie mistake made her fall off her board just as she was getting ready to enter a perfectly shaped tube-she'd waited for it half the afternoon only to pitifully black out and collapse-but realizing that an indelicate passer-by had stolen her things was even worse. "Asshole, whoever you are."

A last look around didn't change her situation in the least. No backpack, no board. And probably no more car, since the keys were in her bag.

"Fuck, fuck… FUCK!" Her cry of frustration was more a sob than anything. She couldn't take it anymore. Audrey collapsed to her knees, trying to gather herself, in vain.

What the hell was wrong with her lately? Sleeping around with a fellow orchestra member, letting her personal life poison her professional life so badly that her days with the philharmonic were obviously numbered. Ever since Marcus Daniels' ephemeral return to her life, everything had gone wrong. For months, she clung to the hope that, maybe, just maybe, Phil wasn't dead after all, undoing all the progress she'd made so far. Then, the reality hit her, hard. He wasn't coming back. She was losing it. Period. And now, here she was, stranded on a deserted beach, with no way to get back home but walk all night.

Her therapist would have a field day at tomorrow's session.

The thought made her snort humorlessly. She already could hear her insufferably patient voice. "Did you think about taking a break? Travel a bit? You sure can afford it, so why don't you take a sabbatical?"

 _As if_.

The thing was… what would she do on a sabbatical if she couldn't share it with anyone? Travel around the world, like a student? What would she do with herself without music? Not that it really mattered since her right arm was a mess anyway, and no amount of physical therapy would help her to be ready in time for the start of the season. Forced time off was on the horizon and the perspective was… frightening.

Still wobbly on her legs, she managed to stand up again, in spite of another bout of dizziness. _Exhaustion_. That was what the therapist had said when a complete check up revealed nothing but the arthritis in her right shoulder. Honestly, she was sick of it, whatever it was. Even more so now that it probably cost her a surfboard, a car and, if she was unlucky enough, a home burglary.

"Shit."

Up above, the seagull was still whirling around, now joined by two of its companions, casting long, deformed shadows on the sand. One last time, she turned around, as if her stuff would magically reappear. Instead, she blinked against the lowering sun casting a copper light on the beach and noticed the remnants of a strip of _do-not-cross_ police tape. She must have been a real mess earlier when she arrived not to have noticed the out-of-place sign. Shrugging at her own obliviousness, she climbed up to the road. With a bit of luck, she could find a ride back to Portland that wouldn't be driven by a total weirdo…

 _Alas._

The road was as deserted as the beach. No car in sight. No truck in sight. Nobody. Nothing. It was absurd. It wasn't very late. People should be driving around, going back to town, heading to Seattle or California or anywhere. This was the Oregon coast in the middle of a nice summer, a touristy area, not the damn Death Valley. Once more, she felt a wave of dizziness submerging her and she almost blacked out. When Audrey opened her eyes again, she noticed a pair of lights in the distance.

At long last.

She waved at the driver, hoping they would take pity on the woman clad in her surfing gear, praying she wasn't flagging down some kind of perv. It was a chance she had to take. She just couldn't spend the night here, and she couldn't walk all the way to Portland, either. As the car approached, she waved and called, but it didn't even slow down.

Asshole.

The following truck didn't notice her, and neither the good dozen cars and vehicles she tried to stop. This was getting ridiculous. The sun was low and blinding, granted, but still. Another wave of dizziness made her sit down on the nearest rock. For a second, she was blind and deaf, engulfed by cold darkness, and fell to the ground. Coming back to her senses was a real struggle this time, and she just couldn't shake away the lingering feeling of oppression. Audrey blinked a few times and discovered a black SUV parked on the side of the road.

But nobody was inside.

She shook her head. She was still lying down. Maybe the driver was calling 911 for help. Audrey struggled to her feet one more time and staggered to the SUV. She needed to tell the driver she was alright. Not to bother with 911.

As she came closer, she recognized the logo, and ran, exhaustion and dizziness forgotten. The driver's side door was wide open.

Nobody.

Audrey wheeled around and climbed down to the beach, only to discover a very familiar silhouette crouching by the police tape. She called his name, but the evening wind might have been too strong for her voice to be heard. He didn't react, apparently absorbed in contemplation of the _do-not-cross_ tape, until he violently punched the ground with his right fist, in an unfamiliar gesture of anger.

Of all the dreams she had of seeing Phil again, this one was definitely the strangest and sickest one. She needed to wake up, now.

Phil stood, nursing his hand and climbed up, back to the car. As he passed her, Audrey noticed the electric sparks that came out of the gloved hand. She waved at him and he kept on walking, his expression haggard, his eyes red with unshed tears. She called him, but he didn't turn back. She ran after him, but his only move was to answer his ringing cellphone.

"Coulson," she heard him answer with his usual professional tone. "Yeah, the hand's working fine, thank you Fitz."

She knew that name. Agent Simmons told her he was the one who created the weapon which got rid of Daniels for good.

"Still a bit fragile though, you'll have to work on it when I come back." This was a guilty understatement, so typical of Phil. Audrey couldn't believe that his interlocutor would let him get away that easily. "Nah, don't worry. Car's automatic. I'll be fine."

Just like that, the conversation was over. Motionless, powerless, voiceless, Audrey watched as Phil closed the SUV door and drove away.

This was a nightmare, and she couldn't wake up at all.

-/-

 _ **Portland, summer of 2015**_

Three days. It took Audrey three whole days to walk back home. Three days of true nightmare during which the hard truth settled in little by little, failure after failure, painful realization after painful realization.

She was nothing but a mere shadow amongst the living.

Nobody could see her. At some point, she almost thought it could work to her advantage when she slipped into a bus bound for Portland, unnoticed, like a shameless freeloader. Then the bus engine started, and she settled into her seat. The bus resumed its journey to the city, and she didn't. Instead, she felt the vehicle go through her body, seat after seat, passenger after passenger. They sure didn't notice her.

And she felt every one of them without even being able to touch them.

So she walked, for endless hours. She walked and never got tired. She kept on walking for three days straight, and she never felt the need to ever stop.

No hunger.

No need to sleep.

Nothing but sheer abandonment and boredom.

When she finally reached the outskirts of Portland in the first hours of the morning, Audrey felt relief. She followed a familiar path to her house, enjoying the early light in Mt Tabor Park where she jogged on a daily basis. Being there, at this hour, contemplating the sun rise from the hill, was _normal_. For a few minutes, she indulged herself, drowned herself into this semblance of normalcy.

Then more joggers arrived and she was more alone than ever. Nobody noticed this woman only clad in her surfing gear, with no shoes on, in the middle of the park. She resumed her walk to her house, heart in her throat, limbs trembling. Each step was a struggle, even if she wasn't physically exhausted.

Each step was a fight not to collapse into darkness.

Only the thought of home made her walk, lone figure in the middle of busy streets and oblivious passersby. Once back home, she could focus, figure her next move. Find a way to catch people's attention, communicate.

Call Tony. He was a genius, he could help her, for sure.

Call SHIELD.

Finally find the courage to call agent Simmons. The young woman had given her a number, just in case… Even when the bouts of sudden, overwhelming dizziness started, Audrey ignored the card she had buried under a stack of papers and bills. The dizziness would go away. She was just emotionally exhausted. She was still grieving Phil… She rationalized all kind of excuses not to make the call.

She couldn't shatter the illusion that Phil was alive, somewhere, hidden in the shadows, with a phone call that would only confirm the only and heartbreaking truth. Audrey snorted at the irony. She'd wasted so much time, wringing her hands while Phil wasn't dead after all.

His whispered words, his light touch. They weren't an illusion. Phil was alive and well, but he couldn't see her.

Finally, she recognized the trees and streets of her neighborhood. A rueful smile formed on her lips as she walked past the Simpson's unkempt garden. Their neighbors next-door raised a petition against them last year, blaming a rodent invasion on the couple's lazy ways. Her smile widened even if her throat constricted when she turned around the last street corner. Years ago, the McCauley kid had run to her house, in tears, because the family cat couldn't climb down the Douglas-fir tree in their garden. She wasn't home, but Phil had decided to pay her a surprise visit. When she had driven home this day, unnerved by a less than satisfying rehearsal session, she was welcomed by the sight of her super-agent boyfriend struggling with a frightening and ferocious cat at the top of her neighbors' tree.

These were the good days, good days that she thought were gone for good. Once SHIELD would discover what was wrong with her, maybe they could go back to them, if Phil was willing.

She knew she was.

In spite of what she told people, she hadn't moved on one bit. She had become _this_ woman, unable to empty drawers in her bedroom and her bathroom, unable to put away pictures and other memories, turning her place into a museum frozen in time.

And if Phil, for whatever reason, was unwilling, or unable to go back to these days, maybe she could find the strength to move on. At last.

She reached her front door, at last. For a second, she tried to find an imaginary handbag with imaginary keys. She contemplated the closed door, swallowing back the bile in her throat.

Cars and buses went through her. She should be able to walk through a wooden door, right?

The idea was unsettling, paralyzing even, more than the fear of finding her place burglarized by anyone who found her keys and car. She stood there, unable to take the final step home. Her limbs just refused to move, just like her brain refused to accept the evidence of her condition.

Then she heard the Bernstein kids running down the street to catch the bus, laughing. The idea of standing among people that didn't notice her was even more unbearable and she took the last step.

 _Home at last_.

Walking voluntarily through the door wasn't really painful, but the effort was properly sickening.

One shouldn't force their way back home this way.

And no one should come home to their red-eyed parents, dressed in black, sitting in their living room. Edu, the conductor of the orchestra, her oldest and most faithful friend and confidant, was there, and so was his partner. Their two adopted boys sat with her parents, looking utterly lost, as if not understanding the situation.

Pepper literally strolled through her, followed by Tony. Both carried trails of steaming mugs.

"Thank you, Miss Potts. " Audrey's mother's voice was subdued, and broken. "For everything."

In his wheelchair, her father didn't utter a word, only nodded his gratitude. Tony was uncharacteristically silent as he let the boys get their hot chocolate. They loved the way Audrey made hot chocolate, and always bugged their dads for some impromptu visit to her house.

"Pepper, please… Audrey was a good friend, it's only natural."

The past tense was physically hurtful and Audrey ran from her own house, unable to hear more.

She ran down the street and around the corner, blind to the Douglas-fir tree and comforting nostalgia. She ran away, as fast as she could.

This couldn't be happening. What on earth was going on?

The headache was back with a vengeance, unforgiving, blinding. She had to stop on trembling legs, blinking furiously against the black veil that always threatened to engulf her these past few days. Only then she recognized the car parked in front of the McCauley's.

The same black SHIELD SUV.

The driver's window was rolled down. Phil was there. The stubble she noticed on his cheeks three days ago was now a growing beard. It was more salt and pepper than she remembered. His receding hairline had receded further. He looked properly exhausted, distraught.

But he was alive.

Audrey tried to kick and punch the car, in vain. She screamed at the top of her lungs. She reached for Phil, only to watch her fingers go through his face without him even flinching. She couldn't even feel his skin on her fingertips. He was hurting, and she couldn't soothe him. Is that what he felt last year? On the radio, she recognized the anchorman's voice.

 _This is All Classical Portland on_ _89.9 KQAC FM._ _The classical musical world grieves the untimely passing of the cellist Audrey Nathan two weeks ago. Member of the Portland philharmonic, admirer of Yo-Yo Ma, the South African musician, aged 38, was also known for her solo albums in which she explored a whole range of styles and sounds, from folk music to movie soundtracks and collaborations with the Finnish band Apocalyptica. This emission is a tribute to her talent and her memory …_

Petrified, Audrey was utterly powerless as she watched Phil's countenance crumble as the first notes of her version of _the Gael_ resounded in the car. She saw him biting back his sobs on his gloved hand, but she didn't hear him.

She heard nothing at all.

Then her vision blurred.

Then… darkness.


	2. The Cave

_**THE CAVE**_

 _ **Somewhere - Sometime**_

"So, the newest member of our old and esteemed club took her sweet time to join us again…" A man spoke through the darkness. His tone was detached, almost ironic, definitely unpleasant.

"Oh will you shut up, Calvin?" a woman snapped back, her voice cold, authoritative.

"Says the woman who started it all." His tone became almost vicious. "Not afraid of you anymore, Whitney darling. You can't hurt me any more than you already did."

"Crying foul again? Poor thing. You _betrayed_ me, you and your clique of useless, power-hungry tools! You never understood anything…"

 _L'enfer, c'est les autres_ Out of nowhere, the conclusion of Sartre's play Audrey devoured years ago during a summer course in Paris came back to her mind. _Hell is other people_.

"Come on, you two." A second man cut in, and Audrey felt a light pressure at her pulse. "You've had this argument at least a thousand times. She looks all right."

Whoever these people were, whatever their problem was, they were talking about _her_. They were tending to her. One of them was wiping the cold sweat from _her_ temple. She could feel his gentle touch. They could see her.

A wave of relief washed over her. What a ridiculous dream she'd had. She would definitely need to have her head checked by a physician once back in town. A concussion was more than a possibility. Or maybe it was a sunstroke.

But the nightmare was over, at last. And that she hadn't drowned pathetically was a bonus point as well.

Tentatively, Audrey forced her eyes to open, bracing against the blinding light on the beach.

Nothing. Nothing but darkness, and shadowy human figures looming over her.

Her lips moved, but her throat produced no sound. Her breathing was erratic, her heart beats got frantic as the feeling of _deja-vu_ became unbearably real.

 _What the hell was going on?_

"Is she alright?" a third man asked.

His voice, she knew all too well: _You are my only light_.

Those had been his words before he started blacking out the entire neighborhood. Then, she'd understood that the terrible series of freak accidents that plagued the people close to her, her friends, the occasional boyfriend, were anything but coincidental. Then, she'd understood that the unexplainable chronic exhaustion wasn't due to the orchestra or her busy solo schedule.

For weeks, Marcus Daniels had isolated Audrey without her noticing anything peculiar was going on. He drained her, in the most literal way.

 _No, keep playing. I'm sorry I scare you. I know I am a monster. But you are the one who can save me._

The collapse of SHIELD had brought him back into her world, just when she believed that she could imagine a life without Phil.

Audrey recognized the familiar taste of bile rising in her throat at the mere evocation of Marcus Daniels. Out of pure instinct, she jumped to her feet and pushed her way out of the crowd of shadows, deaf to their calls.

Deaf to Daniels' plea. _Please, don't run_.

As if she would stay in the same place as this man.

So she ran along dark corridors and stumbled around abrupt corners. She ran into people who were walking around, aimlessly, bounced back on them, not caring if they fell down or remained on their feet.

She ran, but she found no exit. Only more darkness and more corridors and more corners leading nowhere but to even more corridors.

Trembling, out of breath, Audrey stopped and let herself slide down a wall. She was trapped, utterly trapped, but at the very least, she was alone, as far as she could get from Daniels. Slowly, her heart beats came back to a more reasonable tempo. The constant buzzing in her ears subdued. Her breathing was back under control.

Where was she?

Now that the last remnants of panic had vanished, she could feel it wasn't the first time she'd visited this place. In the past months, she had blacked out quite a few times, at home, at the orchestra. She always believed it was simple dizziness, but, obviously, it was more than that.

Who were these people?

Marcus Daniels was her curse. But the other people in the room? The bickering couple? Somehow, they were familiar.

Audrey shook her head. That was the bat in her belfry that was speaking. She always remembered a voice once she heard people speak-professional hazard-and she was sure she never met them in her life. _Whitney_ 's cutting, old-Hollywood accent was too chilling to be forgotten.

However, she couldn't shake the feeling of familiarity. Maybe she'd met these people, in this place, during one of her black out episodes. Maybe it was that… After all, the goddam cave felt all too familiar as well.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck..." She gritted between clenched teeth. "FUCK!" she finally yelled, punching the ground repeatedly in frustration.

Her immediate yelp of pain was lost in the darkness. No echo whatsoever. And no Phil…

 _Audrey bit back a moan as the agent tended calmly to her hand. She felt ridiculous. She never lost control like that._

" _I know it's hard to believe, Miss Nathan." His voice was precise, laying down the facts. "Zero matter appeared for the first time in the 40's. A politician, Calvin Chadwick, owned the company that made the discovery. His wife, Whitney Frost-an actress-,was the brain beyond it all."_

 _Even with the old reports on her coffee table, it was a difficult pill to swallow. Zero Matter? Darkforce? She was losing her mind, that was all._

 _But agent Coulson's hands as he gave her an ice pack felt very real._

" _And you're telling me this because…"_

" _Because SHIELD, or the SSR, managed to beat Miss Frost with little understanding of the phenomenon back in the 40's."_

" _And now SHIELD has the means to do more than that?"_

 _His smile was almost daring, like a kid preparing some mischief. She liked that smile._

" _That's what we do. We'll stop Daniels, I promise."_

Audrey's eyes snapped open. Again, bile rose in her throat. Darkforce. Zero Matter. _What the hell?_ What kind of cosmic joke was this?

"So here you are."

Startled by yet another, different female voice voice, she jumped to her feet, looking frantically around.

"Who are you?" The sound of her voice was pathetic to her own ears.

"Call me Dottie for now."

This was a very young woman's voice. But the way she talked sounded much more mature.

And soothing. Again, oddly familiar.

"You're starting to understand, right?" The question was rhetorical. Audrey nodded.

"Well, I'm starting to connect the dots," she answered. What else could she say?

"That's a start."

The shadow called Dottie walked closer and Audrey could finally see the young woman. The silhouette was blurry, ethereal, surrounded by a pale halo.

A true ghost. Wordlessly, Audrey looked at her own translucent hands, at the pale halo around them.

Visibly oblivious to Audrey's new source of agitation, Dottie sat down and patted the ground beside her in encouragement.

"This is where people who were in contact with the Zero Matter or the Darkforce go. Basically, it's hell."

Audrey let out a shaky breath. She wasn't a believer, always scoffed at the idea of divine punishment. Maybe she should have listened to her very conservative uncle Jake when he criticized her liberal way of life.

 _You're not even married to this man. You don't live together. He's a goy. Is he even considering a conversion?_

Or maybe she should have insulted her spineless and unambitious cousins a little less harshly as a teen when she packed for Europe, filled with the dreams of a great career. Was she really sure that she never stepped on anybody, even unconsciously, as she rose to success from Cape Town to Europe, from Europe to the US?

Her companion's voice interrupted the disturbing reminiscences.

"Well deserved in my case, and many people's case." A sad smile formed on Dottie's lips. "More than undeserved in your case, or Jason's."

"Jason Wilkes," Audrey blurted out, the name coming out the fog of her memory. Dr. Wilkes had been swallowed by the zero matter. That was what Phil had told her.

"Indeed."

"But… Whitney Frost, Dr. Wilkes, Chadwick, they've been dead for decades."

Nothing made any sense, even if she could apply a semblance of logic.

"And I've been dead since 1991, while Phil was still in Moscow, saving the day behind the scenes."

Audrey froze. It couldn't be. She knew the real story behind Phil's family, his guilt, his desire to wipe out the red in his mother's ledger, in his own ledger…

"People who are touched by Darkforce always come back there, whatever they do. Even if, like Jason, Miss Frost and the infamous Marcus Daniels, they manage to escape in some way and live their life. We all come back there."

Audrey's vision was blurred by her tears.. Trapped, she was trapped with dead people. Her family, her friends, _Phil_ , they all believed she was dead when she was trapped in a proper version of Sartre's hell, condemned to share the same space as her stalker.

"No rest for the wicked," she whispered, defeated, her arms tightly wrapped around her knees.

-/-

After a while-it could have been an hour or an entire day-Dottie stood up.

"You can rest there," she said matter-of-factly as she motioned for Audrey to remain where she was. "I'll make sure that Mr. Daniels understands that he isn't welcome there."

Audrey looked up, not sure how to respond. Of course she knew who the woman was, even if her juvenile appearance was disconcerting to say the least.

"Thank you, but how…?"

In this world of absurdity, it was as if she needed to cling to practical matters. How could Dottie stop such an unstoppable monster?

"Well, here, the powers given by the contact with Darkforce are null and void."

Audrey resisted the urge to shrug. _Of course, that made sense_.

Or not.

"And you know _who_ I am, darling. I can be very persuasive…"

Dottie's smile was feline, cruel almost.

"Thank you."

"Oh, don't thank me. I'm easily bored. This place is hell. Thank you for the distraction."

Without even waiting for a reply, Dottie turned around and disappeared, leaving Audrey alone in the darkness.

 _She hated darkness._

" _Shit…"_

 _One moment, they were enjoying a nice meal at her parents' home. It was good to see them again-having a career overseas was immensely satisfying, even if the itch to come back home was still there, always-and it was even better to see how naturally they accepted Phil._

 _How easily he fitted in._

 _Then the living room was plunged into darkness._

 _Audrey struggled against the sudden lump in her throat. She knew that power cuts had become a common thing in Cape Town in the last few months. How many times had she patiently listened to her mother's rants on the phone? Like any avid reader of the comic strip, she had laughed at_ Madam and Eve' _s ironic take on Eskom's antics and other_ planned power failure _concept._

 _But that was before._

 _Before Marcus Daniels entered her life and almost ruined it._

 _Almost._

 _Her parents stood up, by now well used to this new routine. Her father went to retrieve the candles from the cupboard while her mother walked to the kitchen in search of a box of matches, both perfectly at ease in their darkened house._

 _Both oblivious to the panic that threatened to engulf Audrey._

 _Then she felt a gentle hand on the back of her neck, slowly massaging the tense muscles, and she finally relaxed._

 _There was so much that she couldn't tell her parents. They already knew about an_ insistent admirer _thanks to her conductor and oldest friend's inability to keep his mouth shut. That was enough._

"Sorry about the most awkward welcome committee ever."

Startled, Audrey jumped on her feet and instinctively retreated further into the cave. Absorbed in the memory, she hadn't noticed her new companion arriving and sitting at her side. Like earlier, her heartbeats became frantic-even if she started to find small comfort on the shortness of breath and the feeling of oppression that accompanied the new panic attack.

 _Hey, if your heart is acting up, it means that it's still beating in the first place… You can't have a panic attack when you're dead, right?_

"And sorry for sneaking up on you. It wasn't my intention, I promise."

Wilkes' voice was soft as he spoke, and she could make out the outline of his hands raised in a pacifying gesture.

"I know what you're going through," he went on, though Audrey didn't utter a single world. "Being absorbed by the darkness little by little, being on _the other side_ and being unable to touch the people you love, unable to talk to them… Seems so easy to give up, to let yourself be swallowed for good..."

"I didn't…" Her protest was feeble, barely audible.

"You did. You struggled for a long while, and that's impressive in itself. But in the end, you let yourself go. Again, I know that feeling. I won't cast the first stone."

The words stung terribly. Yet she couldn't deny the truth in them. The pain of witnessing her family grieving for her, the agony of watching Phil-alive but so far away at the same time, out of her reach-collapse, it had been too much. And the darkness seemed so inviting, comforting almost…

"What's happening to me ?" she whispered at last, but she remained glued to her spot, at a good distance.

"Darkforce, or Zero Matter-as we used to call it in the 40's-is a cosmic force. It appeared by chance during a nuclear test…"

"I already know the story…" she interrupted, her voice finally clear and firm. "SHIELD told me. How Whitney Frost literally swallowed people, how Howard Stark brought you back to the land of the…"

Audrey didn't finish her sentence. If Wilkes came back and lived his life, as Dottie put it...

"Yes, they managed to bring me back. But, I couldn't stay away. After my first encounter with Zero Matter, I dedicated my life to studying it, without coming close to understanding it."

Jason's smile turned sour as he watched into the distance, suddenly silent.

"I became obsessed. No better than Whitney Frost. She was right. Once you've touched the possibilities beyond the darkness… You can't stay away."

Audrey watched him as he swallowed repeatedly, obviously searching for the right words.

"I'm afraid I'm responsible for what happened to you… The incident that created Mr. Daniels occurred in the lab I created in the 60's, with a most generous grant from the Pentagon."

"From Hydra, you mean…" Dottie interrupted as she reappeared out of nowhere, a predatory smile on her lips. "All done. Your _admirer_ will stay away from now on."

The smile grew wider.

 _Thank you for the distraction_ … Audrey wanted Daniels as far from her as was humanly possible in this forsaken place, but still she couldn't help a fugitive feeling of sympathy. Phil had told her about his mother's more than ruthless ways when she was still a spy… At the same time, knowing that Daniels paid just a little bit for what he'd done to her was a comforting thought. She didn't like feeling like that, it was so wrong, but, at the same time, it felt… satisfying.

"You were speaking about Hydra…" Audrey walked closer and finally sat down by Wilkes' side. Any topic was better than mulling over her newfound vengeful tendency. She wasn't that kind of person. Or maybe she didn't use to. "How could you know? The entire world discovered about them a couple of years ago. They were history."

"My dear, that's because we have our own kind of television over there," Dottie replied, shrugging as if the concept was evident. "And because I knew it all along, and nobody listened to me. Not Peggy Carter. Not even my son…"

Wilkes shook his head, chuckling.

"Accusations of corruption against the US the government coming from a former Soviet spy… now that's solid intel." He got up, inviting Audrey to do the same. "More seriously, we can watch what happens on the other side. Sometimes. Not always. I'll show you. You can try, if you want."

Audrey looked up, hesitantly. The whole situation was crazy. Maybe she was still at her house, certifiably insane. Maybe she wasn't home anymore, but locked in some institution, gazing absently in the distance.

Or maybe she just could get up and see what this _window on the other side_ was about. Crazy or not, she couldn't remain in this cave for all eternity.

She didn't belong there. That was the one thing she was completely certain of.


	3. The Passer-By

_**THE PASSER-BY**_

 _ **Somewhere - sometime**_

 _The window on the other side…_

Crazy as the concept was, as Dottie Underwood explained it, there was really a way out of this cave, or whatever this place was. The only problem, Dottie cautioned, was that the escape wasn't real. You always remained in the shadows as you caught a glimpse of your loved ones as they mourned and moved on.

You always remained trapped in the shadows, stuck in a rut while the rest of the world forgot about you and kept on living. Like a beggar in the streets, you saw people who didn't look back at you back as they walked past as if you were a mere shadow.

As if you didn't exist, at least not in their world.

As painful as it was, Audrey found the window to be an addictive place. You didn't hear a thing-oh boy, she ached to play, or just hear music again- but you could see colors and light. You could observe people as they smiled and got angry and daydreamed. You could hope to be able to go back _there_ , one day, extricate yourself from the shadowy clutches of the cave.

However, most occupants of the cave stopped coming.

Escape was such a futile hope. Granted, some had managed to... but never entirely. Jason came back as a ghost, Whitney gained the ability to absorb people but lost her sanity, Daniels absorbed the energy of everything he touched… Was it really worth it? Daniels' colleagues who had been caught in the lab accident had decided it wasn't, and vanished for good years ago.

Everybody gave up at some point. Just like Dottie said. Life turned into a damn silent movie was too much to bear.

The futility of it all took its toll. Why bother with a world that you weren't part of anymore? When it wasn't the futility, it was observing your loved one as they healed from their wounds and fell for someone new, or being unable to save your children from an irresponsible drunk driver or a gratuitous assault in a dark university park. The feeling of helplessness was the most dolorous one, for sure. Sometimes, it was more subtly vicious than that, like noticing that a year or a decade had gone by since your disappearance. The cave and its occupants were suspended in time, but the rest of the world wasn't. Seeing the flowers bloom again and realizing that one entire year had passed was too much for some people, like noticing the drastic changes in your neighborhood, learning about the passing of a grandmother who wasn't _that_ old when you vanished, or just realizing that the little one now needed to shave every day.

Everybody broke. Or, as Dottie put it, they became one another's very personal and eternal hell, like the Chadwicks.

For now, Audrey hadn't reached her breaking point, and the _window_ had become her solace.

Nobody visited the place these days and the solitude was welcome, as far as possible from the constant nagging and bitching that came with the Chadwicks. Daniels had disappeared for good. Jason had made himself scarce ever since Peggy Carter's passing, as if watching over his past love and dear friend had been the chain that bound him there since his own death. With time, even the strongest steel ended up as a pile of rust.

Even if Audrey felt sad that Jason had given up-she enjoyed his company very much, his wisdom and his humor-she was selfishly happy to be able to use the window as much as she wanted, without sharing it. As terribly painful as it was, she needed to watch the other side, watch as her parents rebuilt their lives back home in Cape Town, observe Edu's kids as they turned into teenaged little monsters who drove their dads mad, witness Phil's struggles with his arm as he found love and lost it… At times, they seemed so close, all of them, so much she felt she could touch them and even topple over the other side, back into the real world. As if she just could walk to her parents' terrace and sip a beer while her father got the barbecue started, the Table Mountain watching over all of them. But her fingers never grabbed anything more than thin air. At times, she felt like a _voyeur_ , stumbling upon a petite brunette who helped Phil with his tie knot between light kisses. It was such a sad irony for a former stalking victim, and she ran back to the shadows, ashamed.

Most of time, she was content to let her gaze wander to familiar places, not searching for anyone in particular. Places associated with wonderful memories or stepstone moments. The beach near her childhood home where her parents took her everyday and taught her the joys of surfing. The dead-end on the way back from school where her first serious boyfriend and she used to escape and enjoy some quiet time, just the two of them. He was a _Coloured_ boy _,_ she was a _Boerejode_ girl, they were Mandela children, but not everybody agreed with this new rainbow nation. The auditorium in Paris where she received her gold medal, the first of many awards and professional accolades. The modern Manhattan office in which she signed her first recording deal on September 9th, 2001 before jumping into a plane and celebrate with her family and friends.

She was like a life-sentenced prisoner, condemned to watch the world from the outside, but these moments were her lifeline. They reminded her that she was still alive. That, maybe, there was a way out.

"So here you are…"

Much to her satisfaction, Audrey didn't jump when she heard Dottie's voice out of the blue. She found great amusement in sneaking up on people, especially when she was bored. With Daniels and Jason mostly gone, and the Chadwicks paying little attention to anything beyond their eternal feud, Dottie had few occupations for her mischievous mind.

"Still clinging?"

Dottie's tone was amused, but not unkind. Just detached, with a hint of constant sarcasm brought by a life of danger and hardship.

Audrey shrugged her reply and remained focused on the scene in front of her. Wordlessly, Dottie joined her and sat _by the window_.

On the other side, Phil ruined his eyesight staring at grainy surveillance videos in a location that she still couldn't place. The brick walls seemed quite old, like some industrial area in the east. The room itself was so _him_ though. She recognized more than a few collectibles-some that had seemingly disappeared into thin air after his _death_ , when SHIELD refused to allow her back to the apartment she had shared with him whenever she traveled to the east coast. They prohibited her from going to this place so full of dear memories even one last time, just to collect her own things, lost in the debacle.

Some had resurfaced in Phil's office though, like a Bartok cello score annotated by Yo Yo Ma. Years ago, she brought it to DC to rehearse before the fall season. Then she had forgotten about it until she needed it again after Phil's death. She'd torn her house apart looking for it, only to remember where she'd left it, and collapse.

She had cried for days again after that, back to square one.

Phil seemed to be in such a dark place right now, searching frantically for the dark haired young woman whose picture was clipped on a board. Whoever she was, he didn't find her, even after a second viewing.

"How is he?"

Even the unflappable spy-turned-ghost could not hide her worry.

"Still popping pills, still not sleeping, if that's your question."

In these moments, Audrey wanted nothing more than jump to the other side and throw the damn orange bottle to the trash, or kick some sense in him, or take him in her arms.

Or all of the above.

"That's not like him."

This was a statement. No emphasis. A worried Dottie never made a show.

"Nope."

On the other side, a door was pushed open and a familiar, smiling figure appeared, coffee in hand. However, Agent Simmons' gentle smile faded as soon as she stepped into the room, her expression turning into one of concern as her eyes caught the bottle of pills on the desk, and as her ears bled from whatever record from hell Phil was listening to.

Neither Audrey nor Dottie could hear the discussion between the two agent, but they could easily imagine it. The smile on Agent Simmons' lips returned when Phil apologetically turned the offending sound off.

"There may be a way for you to go back," Dottie said. "No guarantee, though. It'll be painful. Now that is a guarantee."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Audrey couldn't believe how detached she sounded. Was it Dottie's influence? Or had she already given up unconsciously?

"Jason didn't agree. And now he isn't there to protest."

Dottie's hasty glance to the other side, where Phil passively listened to whatever agent Simmons said to cheer him up, betrayed her own growing worry.

"But I don't think we have the luxury of waiting anymore…"

After much insistence, the young agent talked Phil into taking a break. Tiredly, he rose from his chair and followed her outside.

Satisfied that he was in good hands for the time being, Audrey turned and followed her companion to whatever crazy plan she'd come up with.

-/-

Dottie led the way through the dark labyrinth of corridors and dead-ends. Audrey followed closely, anxious not to let her ethereal guide out of her sight-left to our own devices, she would have been lost an eternity ago. What looked more like a dark left turn than another dark left turn, or even right?

Oblivious to her companion's anxiety, Dottie started to speak, her voice echoing loudly in the labyrinth.

"Even in my darkest days, I never resented western consumer society more than the day Phil came back with a blasted album of this Aussie group… with the electricity name…"

"AC/DC?" Audrey provided the name, eager to keep the conversation rolling. It was unusual for Dottie to go down memory lane like that. It was even more unusual for her to be so candid about her son.

"That stupid name… And that stupid music…" In the darkness, the slender, pale shoulders shuddered in disgust. "What use can have people for that? It's a pure torture tool."

Audrey snorted at that, prompting her companion to stop and turn around with an inquisitive stare.

"Actually, you aren't far from the truth," she started to explain. "The CIA used heavy metal as a form of torture in Guantanamo, in the 2000's..."

"How imaginative… Some things never change."

Abruptly, Dottie's expression became undecipherable and she resumed walking.

"Phil told me those were important days in his training as a spy," Audrey pressed on, decided not to let the topic go.

"Did he?" Dottie's voice sounded almost unsure.

"He learned how to recognize _murderous intent_ and how to hide his forbidden collection from your wrath. How to find the ideal hiding place or introduce new records without you noticing it."

"He was quite the sneaky teenager." Now, there was unmistakable pride in Dottie's voice. "I only discovered the amount of detentions and and warnings he received when he graduated and needed to show his school records to SHIELD in order to get into the Academy."

Audrey grinned at the disbelief in her companion's tone. A _sneaky_ _teenager_ indeed. Phil had been far less tolerant of his young self.

 _Fury caught me red handed as I tried to sell his car for parts… Without SHIELD, I wouldn't have remained free very long. Or alive._

When you considered the danger of his line of work, it was quite an ironic statement. The fact that he uttered these words barely two years before falling during the Battle of New York made them even harder to swallow. That had been one of their rare fights. Something in his work tortured him. He'd grown withdrawn, insufferable. She'd told to consider dropping SHIELD, or at least take a long sabbatical. She couldn't stand what it did to him...

"Fortunately, he met Melinda there."

Dottie's voice put an end to the reminiscences.

"Phil told me she literally kicked the thug out of him…"

"That's one way to put it. They had to stick together, being the youngest in their class. They graduated top of their respective specialties..." Again, the pride was unmistakable.

"He never said. May either."

From the start, Phil had been very open about his closeness with May. He'd told Audrey everything, their days at the Academy, as a duo of brats in the middle of a class of adults, how they crashed and burnt, barely saving their friendship when their youthful romance didn't resist adulthood and went sour…

 _Phil never lied to me_.

That was what she'd said to the agents who came to her rescue when Daniels reappeared in her life. And it was true, until he neglected to tell her he was alive. They'd have never lasted this long without absolute trust.

"How unsurprising," Dottie snorted dismissively. "That's why they never climbed up the food chain, letting corrupt idiots rule instead."

That was true, neither Phil nor May liked to brag. They did their job, they did it well, and came back home, sometimes without a scratch, sometimes with a broken limb or a flesh wound. For many years, it worked. Until it didn't and all went to hell, for May and Andrew. For Phil and her.

Both women fell silent after that, and they kept on walking in the shadows. Finally, the corridor they'd followed came out onto a large cave, the largest Audrey had yet seen in her all her explorations of the damn place. Scattered around, pale forms just sat there, motionless, blind to one another. Men and women. Young and old. From all origins. Most were silent. Some whispered to themselves. All wore a most distraught expression.

"We call it the place of the passer-by," Dottie explained as they zigzagged around the prostrated silhouettes, deeper and deeper into the cave. "They aren't like us. Well, we don't have a way to know… they don't talk. They're just _there_. Until they aren't."

"Where do they go?"

"Back to themselves, I suppose. Until life kicks them back down to the ground. People don't need zero matter or dark force to come here. They nurture their own shadows."

In the distance, Audrey recognized a familiar silhouette.

"Mom?"

She ran and knelt by the silent woman. She tried to shake her awake, produce a reaction, any reaction. Through the window, Audrey had realized how hard a time her mother had _on the other side_ , how much she hid her struggles from her husband… But to that point?

"Come on…"

Audrey saw a flicker of recognition in her mother's eyes before she vanished, a tentative smile on her lips.

Or was it wishful thinking?

She stood up, barely able to control the shaking of her limbs, struggling against the shortness of her breathing. When was the last time she'd felt the reality of her body? When she woke up months ago? She turned around to see Dottie's hopeful smile.

"You might be able to do it… Come on. Let's go."

"What happened?"

"The hell if I know," Dottie shrugged. "If we have to believe Jason, people like you, like Daniels, like Whitney Frost, you are another kind of passer-by. You can interact with some of them. Not all of them. God or the devil only knows why. And you can accompany them back to the _other side_."

"You don't know anything at all." Audrey concluded grimly, shaking her head. Each time she thought things couldn't get any crazier… she was proven so very wrong.

"Something like that."

As they kept on walking, Audrey examined the people around them until she noticed another familiar silhouette.

May.

Dottie followed her stare. "A regular visitor for while. Now, she's back with a vengeance."

Audrey remembered the days and weeks that followed this blasted mission in the Middle East. For once, Phil hadn't even bothered to hide his location. May had come back from Bahrain broken. As her physical wounds healed, she shut everybody and everything out. Andrew. Phil. Her parents. Her dreams. Herself.

"I went there before, right… When Phil…"

"Yes."

"And even before that…" Maybe that was why this place felt so terribly familiar.

In spite of Dottie's curious stare, Audrey didn't want to elaborate. "Long story..."

Fortunately, they reached their destination before she had to explain why _A Dry and White Season_ was basically her family story, with a less tragic ending.

Thorn-like shadows surrounded Phil and whipped in Audrey's direction as she approached to take a closer look. He faced a wall of shadows and seemed to carve frantically. There was no sound that came from him, but Audrey could hear him loud and clear.

 _Leave me alone_.

God knew she had been there before, shutting herself from the world until music therapy took her back to the land of the living, and opened the path to her career.

"After his father died-when the Red Room killed him to get back at me-Phil became withdrawn." Dottie's voice was cold and distant. Some wounds never healed, even after death. "I thought teaching him how to fight back would help him. Almost turned him into a thug instead."

In spite of the thorns, Audrey stepped closer to observe the cabalistic carvings on wall.

"He stopped visiting us for quite a while…"

Audrey closed her eyes. For a while, they'd been happy.

"When he came back, he started doing _that_. All the time."

What had they done to him? SHIELD had told he'd died in the line of duty, and she believed them, until she heard his words of reassurance, until she saw him looking for her on that Oregon beach. Had they faked his death?

Had they done something even more unspeakable?

"I guess I really need to come back to know what's going on…" Audrey whispered.

"Unfinished business is also a way to come back. That's what brought Whitney Frost back, if you believe Jason…"

"Well, we shall see."

 _Unfinished business, hell yeah._

"I'm not dead after all."

Dottie only nodded her reply.

Audrey turned around one last time before walking to Phil. Around him, the thorn-like shadows grew even more aggressive, slashing in the direction of the two women.

"Seriously… you would have thrown out the records?"

Dottie contemplated her with widened eyes before catching on.

"Would have burned them. You don't know the feeling of being woken up by some crazy man on the _highway to hell_."

Audrey was on the verge of finding her way back to the _other side_ , yet she had a hard time saying goodbye. Leaving Dottie alone in this place.

"I wake up to that… well, _out there_."

The look of mock horror wasn't just comedy, but there was warmth in the pale eyes.

"And here goes the illusion that Phil finally found himself a decent girl."

Dottie's wink betrayed her words before she pushed Audrey gently in Phil's direction. It was the first time that Dottie had made physical contact ever since Audrey's arrival in the cave.

"Now, shush, off with you, I don't want to see you back there before a long, long time. I mean decades of real time."

 _Not until I grow old, for sure_.

Audrey forced her way through the shadows. The thorns attacked her relentlessly, lashing at her, rolling up around her limbs, but she kept on progressing.

One step.

Another one.

She almost could touch Phil who was still carving frantically, oblivious to anything surrounding him. Oblivious to the commotion behind him.

She extended her hand, her fingers brushing his shoulder.

And everything turned black.

-/-

The first thing Audrey noticed when she opened her eyes again was the bright colors. Carefully, she straightened up, blinking furiously until she managed to take her surroundings in. She was facing a stained-glass window; the altarpiece on her left was plaster white. On her right, three high windows cast their light far into the church. The sun hung low in the west. It was late afternoon.

"Father, I understand your reticence, but I need your help."

There was urgency in the voice that came from the man whose back was turned to her. He wore a suit and a white cane rested on back of a wooden bench. Facing him and Audrey, an elderly priest shook his head sadly.

"Listen, Matty. I can't ask the sisters to accept these kids if you don't give me a clear reason. What don't you bring them to social services?"

"Father, I _can't_."

Audrey's breath caught in her throat as the priest looked around, probably asking for some advice from above. When he turned his attention back to his interlocutor, she wasn't quite sure if she was relieved that he couldn't see her or not.

"They're _different_." The priest didn't elaborate further, and the blind man nodded. "You're asking me to break the law, Matty."

"I'm asking you to help children in need. They never chose to be that _way_."

The effort was futile, but Audrey tried to be as discreet as possible as she walked down the alley to the exit. Staying there would bring nothing more to her current situation. She was back on _the other side_ , but she was still a ghost.

And far away from Phil, from her family and friends.

When she reached the exit door, she had to take a fortifying breath. She hated the sensation of going through things. Instinctively, she turned around to realize that the blind man was looking straight at her through his red-tinted glasses while the priest rambled about the precautions they'd have to take, in order to protect the children from the _Accords_ and the ATCU. Frozen, she watched _Matty_ back.

People couldn't see her but a blind man could?

Finally, the blind man turned his attention back to the priest and Audrey managed to make her escape outside.

And she groaned.

She would have kicked something if she could.

New York.

Of all places.

She hated it. Professional opportunities that never existed in the first place. A city of smoke and mirrors that buried many of her career hopes.

The place where Phil died.

With another of groan of frustration, she turned her heels to face the church again.

"Would it be too much to ask to be brought back in the same place as Phil?" she asked aloud-not that the recrimination of a secular Jew raised by atheist parents would have any weight here. "Customers service sucks these days. Seriously."

It was summer in New York, and she was a ghost wearing her surfing gear in the middle of Hell's Kitchen.

Could be worse, though. She still could be watching a miserable silent movie through a window, in a dark cave. Could be really worse.

Hell's Kitchen was a good start.


	4. A Ghost in Training

_**A GHOST IN TRAINING**_

 _ **New York City - Late June, 2016**_

Life as a ghost had its perks, once you accepted your condition. No need for food. No need for water. No need for sleep.

No need for money.

You could spend your days as lazily as you wished. You could slip into a movie theater and enjoy the latest summer flicks for free. The reboot of _Ghostbusters_ had been quite fun-she wished she could've gone with Phil and spent the night afterward debating the respective qualities of the original and the reboot. She still scratched her head at the notion that anybody thought that any new _Independence Day_ movie was a good idea.

You could attend any concert at the New York Philharmonic. Of course, Audrey still hated the first chair cellist's guts, a typical asshole who got the job a decade ago with a less than an impressive repertoire but a more than efficient network, but she needed to hear music too badly to be deterred by some old professional grudge. You could arrive at the last minute at the Madison Square Garden and still get the best seat in the house (in a manner of speaking), front and center without even spending a minute in a queue. Of course, she missed the sheer physicality of the experience, the pulse of the basses going through her body in the middle of a sweaty, hysterical crowd, the swell in her chest that brought tears to her eyes when the orchestra went _crescendo_ , drowning the public into a sea of notes.

It was far from perfect, and she couldn't use any mode of transportation. The feeling of people or vehicle going through her still made her sick, but her current situation was such an improvement from the life in the cave. There was light, there were colors, there were sounds everywhere. Even the angry car horns, the shrieking sirens and the constant humming of the city were a marvelous thing to her ears.

Audrey used to hate the maddening noise of the city, and now she reveled in it. Besides, as a ghost, she got to enjoy New York and its many cultural offers like a shameless freeloader, with no rent to pay. She had more freedom than a tourist who had to respect a tight budget. And for a couple of weeks, she certainly enjoyed her carefree time. She savored every bit of it, after a whole year spent suspended in time, in the depth of nowhere, only surrounded by ghosts past and present.

Until the feeling of loneliness and isolation came back with a vengeance.

As oppressive as the cave was, Audrey had been to talk with people. In the middle of Manhattan, among people who walked around her without seeing her, Audrey even missed the bitter and petty chatter of the Chadwicks.

 _Vacations are over. Time to come back to the living for good_.

For the last hour, Audrey had remained hidden-a futile effort for a ghost-in a darkened back alley of Hell's Kitchen, observing the comings and goings of the neighbors who went to hang their laundry and retrieve it.

Waiting for the two kids who claimed to be the next Matt Harvey or Jacob deGrom to leave the alley before the owner of the pair of jeans that Audrey coveted came back to pick up her garments.

If she wanted to interact again with the real world, she needed to wear something else than her surfing gear. Not that it made any difference for her when she remained a ghost.

"Aidan! Josh! Dinner's ready!"

The kids' mother hadn't bothered to go down to the alley and called them from their apartment window.

 _Damn._

The last thing Audrey needed was a witness to her newfound stealing occupation. Hopefully, this was the kitchen window, and the family would be too absorbed by their meal, or TV, to be watching the back alley downstairs.

With much protestation, Kenny and Pete retrieved their equipment and left the place, dragging their feet in the most dramatic way.

Audrey waited for a minute or two, walking around the alley, making sure it was entirely deserted before retreating to a small space between two overloaded dumpsters and focused.

She couldn't help a proud smile as she felt the weight of her body again. And she had to restrain a groan when she first moved her limbs. She felt as clumsy as a toddler, the ache in her muscles not too different from the ache that came after over-exercising at the gym. As quickly as she could, she scampered along to the drying laundry and retreated to the dumpsters again.

There, she put the jeans down on the ground and vanished again.

As Jason Wilkes had told her in the cave, as a an ethereal form, Audrey couldn't affect the physical world at all. It was a scary condition, but Tony Stark's father Howard had found a way to circumvent it. The problems started when she maintained her physical form. Like Daniels or like Whitney Frost, she'd need more and more energy, all kinds of energy, to keep her physicality, to remain in the world of the living.

The first time Audrey tried to reappear, she caused a power failure of half a block, much to her horror.

Now, she knew how to reappear without causing any damage to her surroundings, but she didn't dare push her limits. The last thing she wanted to become was another Marcus Daniels.

Another _Blackout_.

Once she had surveyed the ally one more time and was certain that another reappearance would be mostly harmless, Audrey focused again.

Now came the difficult part. She needed to climb up the nearby fire escape before she could find refuge in the abandoned apartment that had become her base of operations the last few days. From there, she had raided the drying laundry each couple of night, trying not to steal from the same person twice. She hated that. Like she had loathed stealing a pair of fancy running shoes from a passed-out teenager who had far too much to drink with his pals at _Josie's_ , the neighborhood pub.

Audrey was on the verge of appearing again when the jeans' owner swaggered down the alley.

 _Fuck._

And started to swear loudly and complain to her friend. "Oh come on! The asshole took my jeans! The brand new ones. This is just sick, man…"

From her shadows, Audrey knew her cheeks were red, even if she knew it wasn't possible. What kind of person had she become?

"Now you have something in common with Robyn…"

"Screw you, Malcolm."

"Pick up the rest… It's a windy day, you never know." The lanky black man smiled patiently and surveyed their surroundings. "And don't destroy the wall that didn't steal your pair of jeans."

"Yeah, yeah."

Audrey couldn't see the woman's face, but she could imagine the eye rolling expression very easily. As _Malcolm_ approached the dumpsters, she remained in the shadows and already lamented the loss of her ill-gained booty that was left rolled on the ground under her hand.

And, much to her surprise, Malcolm shook his head.

"Okay, nothing but dumpsters and garbage. Can't find them, sorry Jess."

"Fucking asshole."

"Maybe we should investigate? Robyn already asked me to look into it. She lost one of her brother's t-shirts. She's sure it's a ghost, you know."

 _Jessica_ didn't reply, but her look might have been an icy one, for Malcolm held his hands in a pacifying gesture.

"Okay, shutting up. But Robyn's pretty shaken up. You should go and talk to her."

As the pair retreated, Audrey looked down guiltily at the white t-shirt that now covered her surfing gear.

She needed to find another hiding place. Fast.

But before that, she needed to get the hell out of here and process the latest tidbit of information. This Malcolm guy didn't see the pair of jeans that were right in front of him, right under his nose. He couldn't see them, but he saw everything around Audrey.

He couldn't see them because she was touching them with her fingers.

 _Interesting_.

Quickly, she regained her physical form, grabbed the jeans and climbed up the stairs. For once, her limbs didn't feel so heavy.

-/-

"Ah, screw this!"

In the kind of outburst usually reserved to tricky parts of a music score, Audrey tried to kick the nearest pallet, only to watch her foot go through it instead of the intended effect.

A loud crash.

Frustrated, she decided that a walk was in order to calm her nerves. The day before, she had triumphantly pushed an abandoned can around the deserted warehouse, her newest lair. She'd started humbly at first, focusing for hours to move a shard of glass on less than one foot.

Like Patrick Swayze in _Ghost_ , she managed to progress from there, and even caught the subway and the bus instead to walking around all the time, effectively reducing her traveling time within the city. And the night before, she'd achieved her biggest success yet.

Lifting an empty can of soda from the ground with her her right hand. Passing it to her left. Putting it back on the ground. It took her all day and part of the night, but now she could move things around. Alas, in spite of all her efforts, she hadn't been able to replicate it, and even regressed, watching powerlessly as her fingers went through the can again and again. Like learning a new musical piece, sometimes the excess of training became counter-productive, and progress was anything but linear.

Her feet brought her to the brand new shopping center on the fringe of Hell's Kitchen, another testimony of the rampant speculation unleashed by the reconstruction frenzy after the Battle of New York. Before she vanished the year before, Audrey had read about the rise and fall of Wilson Fisk, one day savior of the city, then a wanted criminal the day after, brought to justice by the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. Fisk was still behind bars, but a mere glance around Hell's Kitchen revealed how deeply the neighborhood was affected by the conquering gentrification.

She wasn't exactly a big fan of the shopping center experience right now-she couldn't enjoy it, have a coffee, go to the music store, try new clothes. But she liked the crowds, the noise, the humming activity. And she could catch the news on TV.

Audrey stepped into her new favorite bar where WHIH was apparently the only channel authorized by the owner. She hated the channel, and despised Christine Everhart's fear-mongering ways after the Battle of New York. But the woman's obsession with anything related with the _bizarre_ in general and the Avengers in particular worked in Audrey's favor. If she could catch any lead about Phil's whereabouts.

" _This is Christine Everhart on WHIH…"_

Just in time. Audrey settled in a corner, watching from the shadows. Studying the customers' reactions to the news, or the lack thereof.

" _Today, we'll broach the burning question of the growing number of powered people in the context of the Sokovia Accords and the attitude of the Avengers."_

As always, Everhart found a way to lash out at her favorite target.

" _Today, my guests are the Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross, representing the government, and Mr. Everett Ross, from the CIA. Good morning gentlemen. My first question is…"_

"Where's Steve Rogers?" Audrey whispered in the shadows and shook her head. Everhart's obsession was too predictable, and way out of control.

" _From our latest intel, Captain Rogers totally dropped off our radars after he freed his companions," the CIA agent muttered._

Audrey snorted. Admitting that the most powerful spy agency in the world-now that SHIELD wasn't in the game anymore-couldn't find any trace of the fugitive Avengers was quite the humiliating task for Everett Ross.

" _Which means that they're inactive, probably retired," the other Ross-that was inconvenient-cut in. "Like Tony Stark or the man called the Vision. As long as Captain Rogers doesn't overstep the legal boundaries of the Accords, as long as the so-called Avengers don't act like vigilantes anymore, the US government is fully satisfied."_

The frown on the Secretary of State's face told another story entirely.

" _But aren't you worried that they might act again? The costs of the destruction of the Leipzig airport were astronomical. And the role of the kingdom of Wakanda..."_

" _If they take the law into their own hands once again, not only the US government but also the United Nations as a whole will have to act indeed."_

In other words, Ross chased after too many rabbits. He wanted to pacify to public opinion, control the Avengers but keep them as the proverbial trump card up his sleeve. Audrey studied the former general as he dodged Everhart's most vicious questions about supposed tensions with Wakanda and its new leader, king T'challa. The guy seemed crafty enough to pull the trick.

And maybe the Avengers weren't the only card up his sleeve.

" _Now, if you allow me, Mr. Secretary, I'd like to address the topic of the new powered people that have been appearing for the last year. Some commentators in Washington seem to think that the ATCU had lost most of its efficiency since the sad passing of Gideon Malick."_

This ATCU organization was what worried Audrey the most. From what she had gathered in the news, this was basically a SHIELD 2.0. On the one hand, she was tempted to contact them. Maybe she could find Phil this way. On the other hand, she had witnessed how they treated powered people on the news. She had heard how some people pushed for a harshest version of the Accords which would force all powered people to register, not just the ones who tried to be vigilantes. Audrey didn't approve of Cap's reaction and the way he basically ignored the will of the United Nations-they might have a heated discussion with Phil on this topic, if they ever met again. Maybe resurfacing in such a blurry time explained Cap's reaction. The guy literally went from a period in which it was easy to distinguish right from wrong to a world colored in shades of grey and government corruption. Discovering that the very organization he had fought against not only had survived but prospered within SHIELD and many governments. When the whole scandal exploded two years ago, Audrey found comfort in the thought that Phil wasn't here to witness the corruption of the organization he dedicated his life to.

The organization he died for.

Yet, she couldn't find it in her to accept Cap's behavior. If everyone took the law into their own hands and applied their own brand justice, according to their own values, this was pure anarchy. Had Cap resurfaced in the 90's, at a time when it seemed easier to trust in governments, when even Hydra couldn't stop Mandela from parading with a Springbok jersey and making the dream of the rainbow nation come true, maybe he would have been able to accept the necessity of some sort of control. As a teenager, she had witnessed the fall of a wall that people believed to be eternal, she had witnessed former enemies shaking hands in Oslo. Twenty years later, the dream was over, the rainbow nation an ephemeral dream and Hydra's seeds had renewed flames of war everywhere. A man like Cap just couldn't live in this world.

 _A man out of time_.

Even if she understood him, she still didn't like Cap's vigilante ways. However, she surely was wary of this renewed registration frenzy. The limit between gun control and systemic discrimination was a very thin line when it came to powered people, to people with strange abilities like her. They were dangerous and should be controlled.

Like anybody needed a driver's licence, because a car could be deadly if not driven properly.

At the same time, it was obvious that Christine Everhart, and many others like her, didn't entirely consider the newly powered people to be full citizens.

" _The ATCU is working very hard. Its director, General Talbot, whose action was decisive in destroying the last remnants of Hydra and finding a way to treat the powered people in the most proper way and help them to go through this transformation …"_

At the bottom of the TV screen, a banner indicated a special number that people called if they were concerned by this _transformation_. This sounded like SHIELD policy, not the US government. Phil always said that their main goal was to help people with their abilities, recruit them if they wanted to make a difference, or give them the tools to live a normal life. Only criminals like Daniels ended up in SHIELD's prison-like any non-powered stalker, murderer or bank robber. Of course, the ATCU didn't seem to be interested in recruiting people with abilities-not that they would admit it to Everhart's face…

" _At that's the end of our discussion. Next week I'll talk to General Talbot, after his press conference at the White House. This was Christine Everhart…"_

Audrey walked out the mall to the street and went back _home_ -if a deserted warehouse occasionally occupied by junkies could be called home. She had some training to do.


	5. An Accomplished Ghost

_**AN ACCOMPLISHED GHOST**_

 _ **New York City - Late July, 2016**_

Audrey positioned the empty cans so that they projected a shadow on the ground of the deserted warehouse. It was time for a dress rehearsal after a good week of training.

The first exercise was a very simple one now, which she'd mastered four days ago. She observed the can, made a step back then kicked, remembering how her dad used to teach her how to kick a rugby ball in their garden back home in Cape Town. The crashing sound that the can made at the other end of the warehouse felt very satisfying. The second drill needed a bit more coordination. She grabbed the second can and threw it in the same direction. Her throws still lacked some strength but progress was real. On the third one, she tapped rhythmically with her fingernails, producing a sound, before clenching her hand as hard as she could. She started to crush the can but had to stop soon as her vision blackened suddenly.

This was still too exhausting.

For now, as she exercised, none of the cans had lost its shadow, meaning that she could manipulate objects that remained in the material world. She finally reached for the last one and focused on _disappearing_ like she did when the Malcolm guy went looking for his friend's pair of jeans. The shadow disappeared. Audrey tightened her hold on the can and stood up carefully. Then she started to move, careful to remain in the ray of morning light that bathed the warehouse.

Still no shadow.

When she felt another bout of dizziness, she relaxed a bit and only focused on holding the object. The shadow reappeared. The can was back into the physical world. Audrey focused one last time and no shadow was cast anymore where she stood.

Good. _Very_ good. _Excellent_.

The stubbornness and stamina necessary in her line of work came in very handy in her current situation. Defining a line of training and repeating the exercises _ad nauseam_ , this had been her life story since she was a child. The process was gruesome and frustrating, and she let out her fair share of curses and angry yelling, but the result in the end was so rewarding, like finally mastering a tricky solo part in a Tchaikovsky concerto.

Before heading out to the mall, she methodically kicked the remaining cans to the other side of the warehouse, just for the hell of it, and revealed in the racket she produced-she was getting tired of being a silent presence in the world, to be honest. She needed to make more progress if she wanted to catch SHIELD's attention in the foreseeable future. Like Patrick Swayze in _Ghost,_ she was on her way of becoming an accomplished ghost, on her own, without Whoopi Goldberg's help.

As she stepped out of her lair and walked to her bus stop, Audrey recognized the familiar faces of the neighborhood. Every Tuesday, a big middle-aged Irish guy took the same bus at noon to the center of Manhattan, looking rejuvenated in fresh clothes and smelling of cheap cologne. As soon he stepped into the bus, he turned his cell off and produced a prepaid one, typing anxiously with big, clumsy fingers.

 _Hey, darling. On my way to the station._

Then there was this guy with longish red hair that contrasted awkwardly with the pricey suit he wore. The suit was out of place, but the guy wasn't, his round face addressing friendly smiles to the people he recognized.

 _You can take the Irish guy out of Hell's Kitchen, but you can't take Hell's Kitchen out of the Irish guy…_

Every day, she came across so many people who had no idea she was there, and that she started to know very well after observing their routine from afar.

Audrey sighed as she stepped down the bus. Managing just fine on her own was hugely satisfying, but she could do with her own version of Whoopi Goldberg. Maybe she could roam around Hell's Kitchen to find some crazy ass medium with whom she could talk at last. At times, Audrey felt the sheer need to talk to herself, in the shadows, for fear of forgetting the sound of her own voice.

This couldn't go on for all eternity.

Hopefully, Christine Everhart's intervention at the ATCU press conference in DC would bring a lead that Audrey could use to her advantage. Once she stepped into the busy mall, she took a look at the oversized clock and made a bee-line to the bar. Sometimes, being immaterial could be quite handy, especially when you were running late in the middle of a crowd of customers. No need to slalom and try not to bump into people. No need to apologize endlessly.

She just went where she needed to go.

The midday news feed had just started when she settled in _her_ corner, close to the TV. The other customers much prefered the terrace under the reproduction of an interior jungle that was supposed to look like the one at the Atocha station in Madrid. If she had a stomach to fill with cold beer and a sandwich, Audrey would have chosen the same location. But for now, news from the outside world, even brought by Christine the Harpy, was more vital.

" _More victims of the Red Dawn. In New York, a teenager from Harlem jumped from the roof of his building in the early hours of the morning after a night of clubbing. Friends who couldn't stop his erratic behavior are devastated. In San Francisco, police had to intervene when an extremely violent fight broke out between clubbers. SFPD officers don't understand what happened. Each time, witnesses affirm that Red Dawn has been sold to clubbers…"_

What kind of shit was that? Some real life Walter White had found something worse than meth and LSD combined... On TV, images of the destroyed nightclub were more than unsettling, and Audrey had to swallow the bile rising in her throat. During her time at the cave, Dottie confessed about her first life as a Soviet spy, the gas she used in a theater in the middle of New York, the people she harmed and killed… how she thought she could leave all of that behind and start anew, until the Red Room reminded her that there no such thing as a happy retired spy in the cruellest way. Dottie's words rang in Audrey's ears.

"People just slaughtered one another."

" _... another instance of the ongoing drug war in Mexico… cartels fought all day in the middle of the streets of Torreón… gunfight erupted in Ciudad Juárez… the Mexican police found cartel members unconscious with their weapons melted and useless…"_

The more she heard the news, the more Audrey shook her head. Drug wars and powered people. The situation was out of control. But there was a glimmer of hope… people who went after cartels were on the good side, right?

" _...secret chemical plant utterly destroyed in the suburbs of Los Angeles by criminal fire. Firefighters discovered charred and dismembered bodies, and remnants of chemical materials that helped to produce the new drug that invaded the US market these past several months."_

Audrey grimaced in the shadows. As much it was a good thing to destroy this shit, killing people in the process wouldn't do any good to people like her in the long term.

" _After a quake in the Dallas area, ecologists condemn fracking. The epicenter was in a warehouse district in Irving, with damages estimated in the hundreds of thousands… Oh… This just came in. The DFD made a troubling discovery in a Uncle Bob's Self- Storage facility, the most damaged building in the area. One of the boxes contained 800 pounds of Red Dawn, the new drug that invaded the US nightclubs… A new question comes to mind. Is it another deed by the now infamous_ Quake _?"_

Lots of people seemed to be after this drug thing, in Mexico, in the US. Maybe she should start to look into it as well. If Phil was still around, there was no way in hell that he would not go after this kind of drug.

Not with his background. Not with his obsession of wiping the red from his mother's ledger.

" _And now, this is Christine Everhart, live from the White House. I'm here to interview General Talbot, head of the ATCU, who just gave a press conference."_

At her side, the typical military guy with a terrible imitation of Freddie Mercury's moustache looked quite ill-at-ease under the journalist's scrutiny. His body language screamed that the guy was anything but comfortable with public relations. Calling SHIELD all kind of names and swearing he would bring what remained of the treacherous agency, was more his wheelhouse. Audrey remembered the days that followed the fall of SHIELD with a painful accuracy.

Her disbelief. Her incredulity. Her rage on Phil's behalf.

Everything came back at once as soon as she heard Talbot's voice.

" _Please be assured that the Sokovia Accords are well enforced in US territory and that the ATCU is focusing very hard on bringing the last few vigilantes back into the fold. And we can count on the help and expertise of a renewed SHIELD and its Director Jim Hammond."_

Yeah, anybody who had listened to the news just before would believe _that_.

" _And what about the Red Dawn_?"

Talbot cleared his throat before replying testily. " _Miss Everhart, for all I know, it's in the DEA jurisdiction, and we won't step on our colleagues' lawn."_

As if agencies respected boundaries… In other words, the Red Dawn was definitely on the ATCU radar. Talbot's dodging tactics were far too obvious.

" _Thank you for your time, General…"_

The camera moved to focus on Talbot as he walked away, the White House in the background, before settling again on Everhart. Everything the woman said became white noise as Audrey recognized one of the two men walking at Talbot's side.

 _Phil_. The three men turned around and stepped out of the frame quickly but the glimpse was more than enough.

Audrey swallowed the lump in her throat. He looked so tired, haggard almost. Unshaven. His beard far greyer than she remembered. Most of all, it was the way he behaved that unsettled Audrey. Phil always surprised her by his ability to swoop in everywhere in the most natural way. The man she knew and loved felt in his element in any place. The man she saw on TV wore a withdrawn expression and paced, nervously as if he felt out of place in the setting of the White House. Most of all, gone was the always pristine suit that was like a second skin to him. What was going on with him? He was a political creature. Fury had trained him to be one.

" _Seriously? You worked for the Bartlet administration?"_

 _They'd been dating for a year, yet it seemed like the mysteries around Phil had no limit. Besides, the man was a wall-an amiable one, who talked a lot but revealed very little-when he wanted to._

 _Lately, it seemed that he showed her glimpses of the other side of the wall more and more. This was a pleasant feeling she had to say. A very pleasant one. Audrey settled again on the couch and focused her attention on_ the American President _. Michael Douglas' final speech was really something. For the past year, she'd learn that insistent probing led nowhere. If Phil wanted to talk, he would, on his own time._

" _Yeah, as a liaison, in the 90's. An unofficial one, since SHIELD doesn't really have a public face."_

" _SHIELD was involved in the 90's politics?" she asked as innocently as she could._

" _Cla-"_

" _Classified, I know, okay," she swatted his knee playfully. "So you worked with President Bartlet and his team? For real?"_

" _Yup."_

 _She didn't need to look up to see the smug smile._

" _At one point, the First Lady became quite fond of me. I think they wanted to set me up with their middle daughter or something."_

 _Now the movie was totally forgotten. This potentially real White House drama was far more interesting._

" _I'm calling bullshit."_

 _This was one of his games when he started to talk. Sometimes, it was genuine. Some other times, it wasn't. The game was for her to guess what was right and what was wrong. She knelt on the couch and stared at him, hard, she studied the way his blue eyes stared back at her, calm as ever. His face wore his eternal half smile that could mean anything, from "fuck you I hate your guts" to "gotcha!" passing by "I'm crazy about you." Sometimes, she initiated the game just to have an excuse to observe him unabashedly._

" _Do you have plans for the end of February before you start the recording sessions?"_

 _Audrey's eyes widened in surprise. Now this was an abrupt change of topic…_

" _With my other boyfriend, yes."_

 _Phil didn't miss a beat, only betrayed by the faintest mischievous glimmer in his eyes._

" _Your loss. Hope he has a better plan than two weeks at the Bartlet's ranch near Lake Tahoe. Just saying."_

 _So that was what it was all about… Their respective schedules had been quite hectic lately, and highly incompatible._

" _There are more direct ways to ask me to go on vacation, you know..."_

" _That wouldn't be any fun" He shrugged in his typical boyish manner. "I just thought it's high time I honor the annual invitation I've been dodging for the last five years, right?"_

Phil was a political creature, indeed. He'd been groomed to be so. He had networks. He should be the one dealing with Everhart and chewing her down. Not this Talbot guy.

Something was terribly wrong.

-/-

Audrey's fingers felt terribly clumsy as shestruggled with gestures as simple as using a lighter and opening a beer. The longer she remained in the shadows, the more she lost control of her movements in the real world.

The more she lost touch with her own body.

She bit back yet another curse because her thumb simply refused to operate the lighter stone that would create the needed sparkle. Maybe she should try and reappear more often. Maybe she grew too accustomed of her condition. At the same time, she didn't want to push her luck and black out another block like the first time.

An exclamation of triumph escaped her lips when the lighter finally produced a tiny flame. Hastily, she brought it to her face and lit the joint that the local junkies left behind when she scared them away earlier. Usually, she tolerated their presence and waited patiently for them to go away before claiming back the place and resuming her training. Besides, they always brought their bluetooth speakers with them, and even if she didn't share all their tastes in music, Audrey usually appreciated the disruption of her rather monotone routine.

However, tonight, she wasn't in the mood of tolerating anyone in her immediate vicinity. The moment the kids settled for the night, speakers blaring, beer and weed shared, empty cans started to _fly_ , other projectiles were thrown out of nowhere. Audrey used all the tools of the perfect little ghost, banging on the abandoned crates until the kids ran away, leaving their contraband behind.

Audrey breathed in, letting the smoke invade her lungs and system, feeling like a teenager again. Beer and weed in an empty warehouse. When was the last time she had a joint? She shook her head, smiling. From time to time, she and Edu indulged in their old habit, when they needed to unwind after a difficult rehearsal session or a triumphant premiere. It remained exceptional. They were grown ups now. Or at least, they tried to act like grown ups, which could be a difficult thing when your professional life was all about music.

Could you really consider yourself an adult when you managed to live your teenaged dreams, when having fun doing what you loved and getting generously paid for it was basically the basis of your life? Compared to the sacrifices people like Phil made for the greater good, or any "socially valuable" profession, Audrey sometimes felt… _useless_. She took a sip from the beer and grimaced immediately. Warm and cheap. Everything she hated. Beggars couldn't be choosers though, and her time in a physical form would soon come to a close.

On the other hand, for as long as human societies existed, there'd been a place for arts. So maybe musicians weren't so useless after all…

The unadulterated look of wonder on Phil's face when she caught him staring as she rehearsed in her house in Portland or in his apartment in Washington certainly made her feel like she was doing something right. More than once, he'd joked that she was insufferable when he took her on a date at some musical venue, because she couldn't help to groan at any misstep that hurt her ears. At the same time, he was always eager to listen to her explaining why she was complaining, bowing to her _professional expertise_.

She had to bite her lips when a long forgotten wave of grief threatened to submerge her at the reminiscence.

They were so happy then. She missed him so much.

Phil was alive. As unbelievable as it was after burying him on painfully sunny spring afternoon, he was alive. Why didn't he come back to her sooner? Why did he need to remain in the shadows? The man that she glimpsed on TV was merely a shadow of himself, wearing his pain on his face for anyone to see. Shutting himself into his subconscious, obsessing over some cabalistic carvings… This wasn't the man she knew.

What had they done to him?

The clatter of rushed footsteps brought her back to her present reality. Obviously, the kids didn't understand the message as loud and clear as she'd wished. Audrey disappeared into the shadows again, bringing her booty with her. No need to reveal her presence by casually leaving clues behind. She observed the lone silhouette that stumbled past her with erratic movements, breathing heavily, as if they tried to run away from someone.

A couple of minutes passed, during which Audrey walked closer to the silhouette and discovered a panicked teenager. The warehouse was far too dark to clearly see his face, but the irrational fear was evident in his attitude that didn't calm down when it became obvious that nobody or nothing followed him there. On the contrary, he started to pace furiously until his hand reached for something into his jacket. Audrey gasped when the trembling hand reappeared holding a gun.

The kid started firing at shadows only he could see.

Brutally reminded of the series of tragic events due to this infamous new drug, Audrey ran to the entrance of the warehouse to check if somebody was around, only to stare at an empty street. Where were the cops when you needed them? When she turned around to watch the kid again, she saw him staring emptily at his gun.

And her thoughts became actions.

One instant, she was standing some twenty yards from the trembling teenager, and one second later, she was manhandling him, putting decades of aikido practice to good use for the first time ever, twisting his arm with a strength she didn't know she possessed, forcing him to drop the gun. The kid looked back at her wildly, as if he had a ghost in front of him. Audrey's stare fell to her hand and discovered that she took on a physical form that she never used before.

Her hands and her entire body were pitch black, and solid. And dizziness engulfed her, just like the year before in Portland.

 _No. Not again. Please._

The kid took advantage of the situation and ran away from the warehouse while Audrey vanished again, collapsing on her knees, struggling against the all-too familiar bout of nausea. Blindly, she reached around her, to check that the kid ran away empty handed. When her fingers brushed against the metal, relief washed over her.

 _Whatever happened to her, it had been worth it. The teenager was safe, for now._

Slowly, some form of serenity accompanied relief, and her vision got clearer and the feeling of dizziness subdued.

 _Thank God. And the devil. She was still there._

It took a few minutes of focus before being able to take on her usual physical form. The effort was exhausting, but she need to _feel_ her body.

"Okay," she spoke aloud. The sound of her own voice minutes after flirting with the abyss was so sweet to her ears. "Time to haunt Hell's Kitchen."

She couldn't face the shadows on her own forever. This was as far as she could get on her own. She needed help.

She needed SHIELD.


	6. The Ghost of Hell's Kitchen

_**THE GHOST OF HELL'S KITCHEN**_

 _ **New York City - Early August, 2016**_

 _First, there'd been sneers and insults._

 _At that time, Audrey was too little to understand why her mother should be treated like that by their neighbors, just because she defended their gardener from false accusations._

" _Communist._ Kaffir _lover."_

 _Then, at school, Audrey's best friend since kindergarten suddenly decided she didn't want to sit next to her anymore. Just like that._

 _Audrey wasn't even eight years old, but she soon realized that she learned that in the world she'd thought of as paradise, helping some people was considered an act of treason._

 _And paradise turned into a living nightmare. Their gardener's son never came back, and neither did his father, when he asked the police what happened. Her father came back home with bruises and broken ribs. Dead rats in the mailbox. Friends turning their backs on them. Black cars parked in front of their lawn days and nights. Red lights fading in the distance as a vehicle sped away in the night after pushing their own car out of the road in a loud crash…_

Audrey woke up with a start, her heart frantically beating in her chest. Disorientated, she looked around, blinking.

Scattered crates. Daylight filtering through dirty windows. Dust everywhere. She was lying down in the middle of the warehouse.

 _What. the. actual. fuck?_

Ever since she disappeared in the ocean, she'd never dreamed. She was always conscious, boringly, painfully awake all the time. Or she was swallowed by the shadows. There was no in-between.

Was it a result of her latest attempts at mastering her more solid form? Lately, she'd made huge progress on that front. Unlike her complete body, this dark form didn't affect her surroundings. She could maintain it for hours without blacking out the neighboring block.

But it was thoroughly draining.

She'd collapsed quite a few times these past few days out of sheer exhaustion after a night out creating mayhem in Hell's Kitchen, but never to the point of _dreaming_. Sighing, she got up, ready to pay her daily visit to the shopping center. She truly didn't know what to do with this new information, and she really needed to see if her efforts had attracted any media attention _at last_.

Granted, there was a hell of a competition for attention in New York right now. In the past few weeks, _Spiderman_ rescued every occupant of a building in flames in the middle of Queens even before the firefighters got there. The _Devil of Hell's Kitchen_ beat another batch of Russian mobsters to a pulp, delivered them to the cops wrapped up with a ribbon, and freed dozens of enslaved young women who believed the mirage of a better life the Mafia sold them back home. As if there was a silent competition between the two of them, the _Punisher_ stepped out of his hiding place and properly eliminated the last remnants of the biker gangs he savagely assaulted the year before.

Compared to these feats, scaring the hell out of pimps and junkies or saving an elderly couple from a crazy truck wasn't even worth a line in the last page of the most terrible UFO-obsessed paper, let alone the attention of an anti-Avengers crusader like Christine Everhart.

Maybe Audrey should opt for another, less vigilante-crowded neighborhood, or even consider a more radical change of scenery. Her own mayhem would definitely stand out more in a quieter city. So far, there'd been no news about any superhero in Chicago or Cincinnati. New Orleans could be a serious option too, one that would surely attract her not-so-dead former boyfriend.

If Tony hadn't been entangled in the Sokovia Accords negotiations and enforcement, she would have stepped into the Avengers tower and scared the hell of the guy. But his plate was full enough.

"So, you're telling me that Davey and his pals saw him running away from there because of a _ghost_?"

The deep, male voice startled Audrey. Damn it, she was getting sloppy these days.

"Yep."

His companion was a woman. And as they started to search the place methodically, something told Audrey that these two wouldn't be scared away so easily. They were searching for something, or _someone_.

"I wouldn't have paid any attention to them, y'know. But since I saw dead people walking around last Spring… Can't dismiss anything."

"I thought you were done with that kind of shit." The man's tone was light but still inquisitive. The guy didn't trust people easily. And the woman sounded… jaded, to say the least.

"I'm done with some _people_. The martyr kind, you know. You aren't a martyr, are you?"

The guy's chuckle was a pleasant rumble.

"No, not my style, Claire."

"Easy to say when you're bulletproof…"

 _What the…?_

Audrey definitely wasn't the weirdest person in New York. Jeez.

"Don't know if there's a ghost around, but there's somebody for sure," _Claire_ went on, rummaging through the stash of papers, beer, snacks and cigarettes that Audrey collected in the course of the past few weeks. "Luke, come over here."

Audrey gritted her teeth in frustration. _Damn._ Why hadn't she thought of hiding her stash before they saw it? It wasn't as if they would have noticed her anyway. This whole living-in-the-streets wasn't really her thing.

 _Luke_ joined his companion. From where Audrey stood, she could finally see the pair. The latino woman's expression looked as jaded as her voice sounded. And _Luke_ was… dreamy. The African-American version of Thor.

"You think your teen's hiding around here?"

Claire shook her head. "Not enough drugs. Tim is way beyond the occasional weed."

"This Red Dawn thing?"

Now _that_ got Audrey's attention.

"Yeah. Started on it last June, thinking it was a new brand of ecstasy. Made him hear voices everywhere, then he became violent. His family sent him to rehab."

"And he escaped two weeks ago."

And almost blew his head off in this very warehouse. Audrey grimaced. She remembered the panicked kid very vividly. And she kept having annoying flashes of him from time to time. She moved around under the pair's noses to reach the corner of the warehouse that they hadn't searched yet. This was where Audrey hid the gun _Tim_ left behind. Maybe they could do something with it. They seemed to know what they were doing, while she was clearly out of her depth.

Way out of her area of expertise.

For a moment, she considered the object in her hand. Throwing it was out of question; you never knew what could happen with these things. She finally decided to walk to the pair. If Claire talked so candidly about the walking dead, she shouldn't be spooked by a gun appearing from nowhere, right?

She continued her explanation to Luke. "... and then Dr. Rahman received a very official phone call and buried all her research about the Red Dawn." She frowned in disgust.

"That's why you didn't go to the police?"

From where she stood, Audrey could see Claire's defeated nod and the sudden tension in Luke's shoulders.

"Wouldn't be the first time some shady government agency has something to do with crazy experimentations."

His voice was dark, hateful almost.

Like when her limbs moved faster than her mind when she rescued _Tim_ , Audrey made a split decision and appeared in her shadowy form, holding the gun out.

"Maybe I can help."

Her own voice sounded very strange to her ears. Raw. Muffled. But she could communicate. Not for long. This was a start. It was high time to see if that strange connection she'd felt to the kid since she touched him was more than a fickle of her imagination.

To their credit, the pair didn't jump off their skins. _Almost._

-/-

"Hey, _thief_ , yousure the boy's in there? Looks like a pretty legit building to me."

Audrey nodded wordlessly. For once, she was glad of the limitations of her current condition, for nobody could see her blush guiltily under Jessica's less than benevolent and unwavering stare. When Luke said that they needed some reinforcements, she would have never imagined that said reinforcements would be one person, and the woman from whom she'd stolen a pair of jeans.

Their first meeting had been _interesting_.

" _How do I know it's you? I'm a fucking_ detective _. I have a witness. You're a girl, the same height as mine. And you're a ghost. Kinda." Jessica rummaged through her bag and held out a worn out T-shirt. "You can keep the jeans, no big deal. But the shirt goes back to its owner. Do what you have to do and change clothes, and gimme the damn shirt back."_

Earlier in the afternoon, Audrey managed to localize the kid and discover that she could follow somebody she touched in her shadowy form anywhere. Tim was held prisoner with other kids, all doped with Red Dawn in the basement of some brand new corporate building-another legacy of Wilson Fisk in Hell's Kitchen. Later, when she recounted what she'd witnessed to Claire, the nurse seemed shaken to the core, as if it hit too close to home.

" _I had my fill of ninjas and crazy experiments last Spring." After that, Claire left for her shift at the rehab center. "I'll make sure there are enough beds for the people you'll rescue."_

Audrey's eyes lingered on the letters on the front. _Yamatetsu_.

She frowned. For all she knew, the Chinese were the aggressive ones these days, as far as foreign investments were concerned, not the Japanese. This brand new building, built with Fisk's money was… dubious. And Claire's allusion to ninja… disturbing.

"Well, as legit as a building can be with those Matrix-like guards in the lobby. Sure you can't take the boy with you? You brought us there."

That was the second lesson of the day. Audrey _could_ actually bring people with her. It would open a world of possibilities, if the experience weren't as terrifying as falling into the cave once more. Being able to take shortcuts through the shadows was exhilarating. The lingering fear of never stepping out of them ever again was debilitating.

Audrey shook her head. "Too weak." Her voice sounded more and more muffled. She'd really pushed her limits today, and she was on the brink of collapsing.

She felt a big hand on her shoulder.

"Okay, _Shadow_ ," said Luke. "We take it from here. Just watch our backs. And thanks for the help."

Audrey nodded gratefully and let herself fade.

 _At last_.

" _Rookie_ …" Jessica snorted in mock disgust, her stare softer than usual, before she jumped from their rooftop to the one next to the _Yamatetsu_ building.

"Yeah, surprised the hell out of me too, the first time," Luke smiled at her, even if he couldn't see her anymore. "Welcome to the freakshow."

And he jumped down.

The guards revealed their machine guns, just like that, in the middle of the street, and fired at him. Audrey gasped. What the hell was wrong with this city? Wordlessly, she watched Luke walk toward the guards, ignoring the bullets as if they were no more than mosquito bites until he was close enough to grab the first guard by the collar and punch him unconscious, with his bare hands. The other guards threw the empty and useless automatic weapons and stepped back prudently. They drew out their handguns, and fired again, more out of fear now than anything, screaming themselves hoarse.

 _Bakemono!_

Audrey's Japanese was rusty-legacy of a six month grant in Tokyo at the start of her career, but she still recognized the word. _Monster_. Now, who was the monster? The bulletproof guy or the mobsters who doped kids up in their basement?

She was a lawful woman. Always had been, in spite of everything she witnessed as a child. She believed in organized protest, she believed in the power of unions and political opposition. She didn't usually believe in people who took justice in their own hands. Not even two months as a ghost in New York, and she already thought like a damn _vigilante_. The ironic paradox was… bitter. From her rooftop, she observed the streets, making good on her promise to _watch their backs_. As if people like them needed any form of help. More than watching their backs, Audrey seemed to be a spectator of her private action movie, with bad guys flying left and right.

She enjoyed the show so much that she forgot to watch her own back and barely escaped the blade that came from behind.

 _Impossible_.

She was invisible. Vehicles and people just went through her. She couldn't take the subway if she didn't focus on remaining in the damn car.

Another slash.

Audrey ran to the other side of the rooftop only to discover more blades. More red masks.

 _Ninjas_.

Four of them now, staring right at her, their blades ready to strike.

Frantically, Audrey took a look at the _Yamatetsu_ building. Jess and Luke weren't out yet. She couldn't call them for help. She couldn't let them face these guys on their way out, either.

So she ran. Jumped to the other rooftop. When she was ethereal, she could do anything she wanted, now. These guys wouldn't follow her forever, would they? They would get tired at some point, right?

She ran headlong, and for the first time, she was happy not to have a physical body to deal with. No body meant no exhaustion.

Her heartbeats were frantic though, as panic submerged her. The ninjas weren't tired either and kept on following her, from one rooftop to another, slashing at her anytime she slowed down or had a misstep. Even more frightening, they didn't produce any sound, as if they were ghosts themselves. They chased after her relentlessly, mercilessly and absolutely no one could notice what happened in the shadows. People and animals on the ground kept on with their nightly routine. Cats roaming the rooftops paid no mind. Audrey was on her own, trying to escape from her pursuers who came closer and closer.

Hurting her through the shadows.

 _Impossible_. It seemed impossible, but the blood on her forearm was far too real.

Cornering her, like a fox-hunt.

They knew the neighborhood. She didn't. They just waited patiently for the moment her head-long run would lead her to the pier.

Audrey considered her options.

Behind her, there was water she knew, deep inside, she couldn't jump into, not if she didn't want to return to the cave, back to square one.

The four ninjas stepped prudently in her direction, ready to strike.

She tried to calm down, in vain. If she just focus, she would be able to return to her shadowy form again, and just teleport back to here warehouse, or anywhere. But it was wishful thinking.

She could jump into the water. She got out of the cave once. She could get out twice.

Or she could fight back.

There were only four of them. If she materialized and used dark force for real, it would be over in an instant.

But she would be a murderer. Even in self-defense.

The first blade slashed at her. She avoided it, rolling away on her left, through another ninja who stroke emptiness.

Audrey's survival instinct took over. She materialized before her opponent could turn back and laid her hand on his back. She shuddered as life left the ninja's body, rushing into her vein, making her _stronger_.

The feeling was frighteningly intoxicating.

She released him before it was too late though. The ninja collapsed to the ground, unconscious. His three companions charged.

 _Bakemono_.

Again, the pot called the kettle black. She pointed her hand at them and emitted dark force. Like Phil and his agents the first time, like agent Simmons and her companions the second, the blast projected the ninjas far away.

Disbelievingly, Audrey stared at her trembling hand. Now, she was worthy of a news flash in Christine Everhart's show. She was not sure she entirely liked it.

She was pretty sure she hated the notion.

And she hated even more that the ninjas refused to take a clue. They got back on their feet and approached again, their stance even more threatening.

Bile raised in her throat. Why didn't they stop? Didn't they care about their lives? Eliminating her wasn't so important that they would die to complete their mission?

Her whole body was trembling now, until a street lamp went off, then another, and the next one. She didn't control anything now.

"Please, don't come closer." She collapsed to her knees and started to plead weakly. "Stop it. Stop it. Stop it." She repeated, willing herself to disappear, to vanish.

Her assailants were deaf to her pleas, and blind to their own safety. They kept approaching, blades drawn. Audrey could feel she was draining the unconscious one without being able to stop.

She wasn't even touching him. She was worse than Marcus Daniels.

In a last futile attempt to deter the ninjas, she pointed her hand at them again. The new blast projected them farther away, even more violently. They shrugged it off and charged, one more time.

Audrey closed her eyes, resigning herself to her fate. Hopefully, Luke and Jess managed to rescue Tim and the other kids from the _Yamatetsu_ building. They were good at that. She wasn't. First thing tomorrow, she'd go to the ATCU. They would know what to do with somebody like her.

She should have remained in the cave.

The dreaded influx of energy never came. Audrey opened her eyes just in time to see the third head roll and discover a rather disheveled, aging man who wiped his bloodied blade carefully. Contrary to the ninjas, he kept his distance.

"Took me a while to find you, little ghost."

The man sat down cross-legged, his sword balanced on his knees.

"We have all the time in the world. Take your time. Calm down."

Little by little, Audrey could feel her heartbeats slowing down to a more normal rhythm. Her body stopped trembling. The influx of energy disappeared.

She vanished, at last.

"I'm going to check the body next to you. Don't be afraid. Don't go too far."

Audrey stepped back, keeping a safe distance with the old man who knelt by the unconscious ninja.

"Not a murderer yet, little ghost. You can rest, now. My name is Stick, by the way."

Even if the words were comforting, there was something in the man's biting tone that made her uneasy. She let herself relax though.

She was no Marcus Daniels, yet.

Audrey let herself relax until she saw the _Stick_ draw his blade again. Horrified, she couldn't stop him from finishing the fallen ninja.

"Soldiers of the Hand don't deserve any pity. You saw what they're doing in this basement, right?"

Quite stupidly, she nodded, even if he couldn't possibly see her. But Stick always seemed to know where to look. Temptatively, she circled around him, and he followed her every movement. She walked closer and noticed that he followed her by ear, so to speak.

Like the blind man in the church.

"So you noticed already? Or maybe you already met Matty." He chuckled. "Smart and observant ghost." He sheathed his blade again. "Maybe too kind. We'll work on that."

Audrey remained glued to her spot as Stick walked to an antique Chrysler just out of a Bogey movie that was waiting for him. Before he climbed into the car, the man turned around, inviting her to follow him.

"My people told me that your friends successfully rescued the kids. And caused lots of damage too. Not that I especially like their Hun ways. You did well, and you can do even better."

She just stared at the car, unable to process what was going on. She'd dated a SHIELD agent for years, she should be familiar with this whole super secret organization attitude.

Sighing, Stick walked back to her.

"You're a dark force user, you're a woman. Can't say if you're pretty or not, 's Matty's prerogative. One thing is sure. You don't know how to fight. You loathe it. And you're afraid of what you can do." He stopped, letting the words sink in.

"Years ago, I hunted down another dark force user. I tracked him down to Portland… He was after a woman there."

Another pause. How could he possibly know?

"As you know it, SHIELD got him. But not before the bastard caused some serious harm to his victim. How long have you been sick before Marcus Daniels was caught, _Miss Nathan_?"

Audrey's throat constricted. _Six months_. Six months of unexplainable anemia and constant exhaustion. Daniels affected her weeks before she realized he even existed.

"You're afraid because you felt the effects in your very flesh, Miss Nathan. You're no soldier, but you have no choice. You have to master your powers. Then the decision to use them or not will entirely yours. Not like tonight."

Everything he said was little more than white noise. She heard the harsh but comforting words, but they didn't register. All she could hear was her name on someone else's lips. Someone talked to _her_ , knew her.

"Now come. I'll help you, and you'll tell me what you saw in this building. Now that your friends destroyed everything and caught the cops' attention, I can't gather intel anymore."

Stick held his hand out in invitation.

"Give and take. Exchange of services. Now come, we don't have all night. We have a war to fight."

Audrey didn't have any wars to fight. She followed anyway.


	7. Stick

_**STICK**_

 _ **New York City - End of August, 2016**_

After their not so chance encounter on the pier, Stick led Audrey to his organization's underground lair, hidden under a most innocuous children's bookstore in the middle of Greenwich Village. Stick's place was Spartan, to say the least. No decoration on the concrete walls. No windows. Only the minimal furniture. But the sofa looked comfortable, not that comfort was a crucial notion for Audrey nowadays-what wouldn't she give to just spend a lazy morning buried under a clean comforter! And there was all the necessary equipment, coffee and tea maker, oven and a TV. Stick liked his personal comfort, and he wanted to keep informed, even if half the news was utter trash in his opinion.

In the mornings, the old man usually left the place at an ungodly hour for whatever errand he had to make and Audrey made herself at home. If she couldn't start her morning routine with a burning cup of tea and fresh croissants-legacy of her stay in France-she could at least reproduce half of it by catching up on the TV news.

This morning though, the news were particularly gruesome and unbelievable. Audrey couldn't tear her eyes from the TV screen. Images of burned up cars and brick walls riddled with bullet holes were the testimony of the sheer terror the population endured in the South Bronx the night before.

" _This is Harold Park for WHIH, live from_ The Hub _in the South Bronx. The NYPD is still securing the area while the local population and authorities alike try to understand what pushed several gangs to turn the area into a war zone. The most serious lead is, again, the Red Dawn. Our FBI sources confirm that a local gang, with strong ties to the Salvadorian_ Maras _, recently became more than proeminent by pushing their rival out of the economy of the Red Dawn."_

Behind the reporter, dark smoke floated in the air, reminding Audrey of the images of Manhattan after the Battle of New York. For hours, she'd remained glued to her TV, checking her phone every minute, willing it to ring.

When it finally rang at the end of the day, her whole world crashed down.

" _However, the warring gangs didn't cause as much damage as they could have. Like in Mexico two months ago, witnesses are talking about melted guns and gang members collapsing. In spite of the violence of the fight, the casualties are very low."_

This was nothing short of a miracle. Stick was right;there _was_ a war going on. Yet Audrey was still most reluctant to have any part in it. Despite her gratitude for everything Stick had donefor her, helping her channeling her powers and adapt to her condition, she didn't have it in her.

" _Now, the questions on everyone's minds: … What will be the government's response? Are the Avengers back on the streets again?"_

Audrey heard the door open and close, and smile at the now familiar clicking of the white cane. She didn't bother materializing. Stick _saw_ her better when she remained a ghost than when she adopted her shadowy form, and he liked the sound of his own voice too much to even try and have a real discussion with him.

Besides, he possessed the uncanny and highly frustrating capacity of reading her moods and anticipating her replies all the time.

"Still glued to that useless box?"

No _Hello_ , of course. _Hello_ were too expensive for this stingy old fool. And, naturally, he went straight to the fridge and took a beer. Audrey felt a pang of envy. Since the incident at the pier, any form of complete physical reapparition had been a big no-no, which meant no more beers and cigarettes and any kind of food. However, it was better like that.

Less dangerous. She couldn't afford losing control.

"I met Mrs. Gao again, with Matty. She isn't behind this new drug. She doesn't like it. She's proposing a truce for now."

Audrey didn't have to think hard to remember the old lady who hadn't been fooled by Stick's stratagem, and told sternly to the "ghost in the room to remain where it was until the end of the discussion." The seemingly harmless, elderly woman had turned around and stared with piercing eyes at the dark corner where Audrey stood. From the shadows, the amicable face was replaced by a fiery phoenix.

Audrey raised an eyebrow at that. It had taken Mrs. Gao three meetings to come to this conclusion. The damn woman surely kept her cards close to her chest.

"Don't snort… She couldn't just accept a truce just like _that_. There's a whole decorum to respect… Now she's the one proposing the deal. Much better for her."

Stick _did_ snort.

"Anyway, she accepts to join forces with the Chaste. She finally agrees that the Hand's become far too greedy lately."

On the TV, the news from the Bronx gave way to Chris the Harpy's daily rant.

" _And this Christine Everhart for WHIH…"_

Stick sighed with irritation as he opened the can of beer. He sat down heavily on the couch. In spite of his outward indifference and disdain, Audrey knew he didn't miss a beat of what was going on during those segments. He knew exactly how to decipher the hidden meaning behind the obvious, TV standardized words. Audrey always prided herself for her ability to recognize a voice, a nuance, but Stick's sense of hearing was surnatural.

" _Today, we'll talk about a very worrying situation in the tri-state area. Over the past two weeks, local police have been overwhelmed by an unusual number of missing persons."_

Stick snorted, again. This was old news to him. The _Chaste_ -what kind of name was that?-was on it. The old tyrant made sure that some of the _exercises_ he had Audrey repeat all day were in fact for _his_ benefit or, better said, for the _cause_ he served so zealously.

They managed to bring back a few people. Not enough. Some seemed to vanish from the surface of Earth, literally. Some came back a few days later, surprised to see the commotion their little _escapades_ caused.

" _Controversial scientist Holden Radcliffe was supposed to give a conference yesterday at Columbia University about what he calls the_ 'future evolution of man,' _but at the last minute postponed. We still have no news about him."_

"This is getting out of hand." Stick's words were flat, detached almost. Typical him. But Audrey could sense a hint of worry in his voice.

A hint of dread.

" _In New Haven, the FBI Missing Persons Unit headed by Special Agent Jack Malone is actively investigating the sudden disappearance of Pr. Cameron, head of the immunobiology department."_

"Come on, show yourself." He patted the couch beside him. "We need to _talk_."

Audrey didn't comply immediately. Reappearing in a shadowy form was kid's stuff for her now. Thanks to Stick's training-bordering on exploitation-she knew how long she could retain this form, what she could with it, how many people she could bring with her, how far she could travel through the shadows.

And she knew that it was an exhausting effort that should remain a rare occurrence.

"I don't need to see you, obviously. I see you anyway, all the time." He patted the couch more insistently. "I need to hear what you have to say, not try to guess it."

"Oh, now that's different." Audrey still hated her muffled voice, but it was nice to interact with people from time to time. Human creatures were social creatures after all, even if Stick wasn't really convinced by that fact. "It's so nice to see that my opinion's occasionally valued. Makes me warm and fuzzy inside."

"Don't get too cocky."

" _Now the question is… What is going on?"_ Everhart's way of stressing each syllable was unnerving. Talk about fear-mongering journalism, if that could be called journalism. " _General Talbot, from the ATCU, agreed to answer some of our questions."_ The camera switched from the studio to Talbot's face. The man looked strangely amicable for a man who always showed little patience for journalists' inquisitive ways.

"What do you think of him?"

Stick's sudden question startled Audrey.

"Beg your pardon?"

Audrey was sure that Stick rolled his eyes behind the dark lenses.

"You're an avid viewer of this show, right?"

Audrey shrugged. How else could she hope to find any clue about Phil's localization?

"So you already watched this _Colonel Blimp_ make a fool of himself on TV, right?"

"Definitely not the most media savvy soldier," Audrey agreed as she found a comfortable position on the couch, her feet on the coffee table.

What a pair they made, a shadow and a blind man watching Christine Everhart's news show.

" _The ATCU is working actively on the Radcliffe's case," Talbot replied "With the help of SHIELD, we have some serious leads now."_

" _Excuse me, General. But Dr. Radcliffe faced very serious accusations earlier this year…"_

Audrey and Stick snorted in chorus. The question behind the question was so obvious that it made her brain hurt: Why wasn't he in prison? This was the real, and dumb, question. Obviously, Christine the Harpy hadn't heard about the concept of "innocent until proven guilty." Maybe she'd more at ease with an Inquisition, when the accused had to prove to the crazy judges that he was innocent.

" _And he was cleared. This conference was part of an ambitious plan to prevent the excess of sciences. The world suffered greatly from mad scientists' unchecked actions. More than anybody, we felt that Dr. Radcliffe's experience would be most helpful for students who're about to embark on careers in the scientific community."_

Audrey frowned. Something was off. The Talbot she was accustomed to seeing on the news couldn't be so smooth.

"So, what do you think?" Stick asked again.

Now she understood his question.

"Dunno," she answered, shaking her head. "He's _different_."

"How different?"

"It's almost as if Phil found a way to hammer some sense of diplomacy into the guy's skull."

Stick's frown showed that he wasn't totally convinced-and that he was really concerned. He didn't even mock her for the reference to her _zombie ex_. She wasn't entirely convinced, either. There's was something mechanical about the man. Too perfect. What Talbot had gained in diplomacy, he lost it in his genuine humanity.

The man was an idiot, but a very honest and human idiot.

" _The population can rest assured that we're doing everything in our power..."Talbot kept on rambling. "The possibility that this is a sect, or a religious cult, must not be dismissed, either. We're working in close collaboration with the FBI."_

Bla. Bla. Bla. Bla.

Audrey shook her head again. "Something's off. He's definitely reading somebody else's speech."

Audrey might not be a soldier or a spy, but she could recognize it when someone danced to another person's tune. Talbot's performance was too perfect to be true. Over the years, she'd developed the ability to notice when SHIELD was behind an official statement. One or twice, she even recognized Phil's pattern of speech and rhetorics. Talbot's speech was very SHIELD-like, that was for sure. The smoothness was very _Phil_. But the content sounded _off_.

"Remember the computer scientist we brought back last week?"

Apparently, Stick had what he wanted. He fumbled for the remote-the guy could fight in the middle of the night with a damn _katana_ but his daily life was still affected by his condition. Wordlessly, Audrey switched the TV off.

"He was pretty messed up," Audrey replied.

So messed up that Stick initially thought that the guy was a Red Dawn user.

"You told me that there was something strange about his aura, or something like that."

"I don't know," she shook her head. "Maybe I imagined it. Maybe I was still reeling from what I saw with Mrs Gao."

"Maybe," Stick said, humoring her. But his tone told another story. He believed she'd seen something valuable. "Usually, I know what the Hand is up to. But this time, I still can't figure out their game."

For a fugitive instant, he sounded… unsure. Then he remained silent, lost in his thoughts. Audrey took her cue and vanished again. Conversation was over.

On the kitchen counter, she found the latest issue of the _Bulletin_ and started to read, eager to see what Karen Paige had to say about the South Bronx incident.

-/-

 _Body Movin'_ blared from oversized loudspeakers, the Fatboy Slim version. All of a sudden Audrey was transported back the time when the title was first released. She and Edu were fresh out of the _Conservatoire_ and considered to be the most promising rookies of their generation. Years of hard work and sacrifice were finally awarded by long awaited medals and other accolades. The summer of '98 had been an endless celebration-Audrey had earned a grant to go and study with the Tokyo Philharmonic, while Edu was expected at Milan-and the Beastie Boys played no small part in that.

As Stick guided her through the roaring cars and the cheering crowds, Audrey looked around critically from the shadows. Most of the kids around weren't even fetuses when the single was first released, which meant that many of them shouldn't be so familiar with labels like _Smirnoff_ and _Jack Daniels_.

At this very moment, more than invisible, she felt _old_.

"Keep following." Stick made a beeline through the crowd, not bothering to even acknowledge the angry, then mildly apologetic stares aimed at him when he pushed people around.

Audrey gritted her teeth as she made her own way, going through people. More than a year after her disappearance in Portland, and she still didn't like the feeling of people and objects going _through_ her. She did it naturally now, but the significance of it-that she wasn't not really _there_ -always made her throat constrict.

When they reached their destination, the place where suped-up cars-each uglier than the other if you asked Audrey- gathered before the race. She thought she had a good inkling of the way Stick's crazy brain worked, but this latest experience proved the contrary. What were they doing in this bad remake of _Fast and Furious_ organized in the outskirts of New York City?

Three hours earlier, Stick had returned to his place, his step purposeful and his voice authoritative." _Come with me. We have a trip to make to New Jersey."_

And so they'd gone, to a polluted brownfield site south of Staten Island, the vestige of a time when there was work for any American blue collar. The abandoned zone had been appropriated by local gangs who weren't really bothered by the tons of PCBs, titanium dioxide, and even radioactive elements. The proximity of the highway network between New York, New Jersey and Connecticut was ideal, as was the peace. Until a new big promoter decided to buy this garbage dump of land to transform it into a new urban oasis, this where the gangs gathered to show off their driving and mechanical skills.

 _Fight For Your Right_ now resounded on the blaring stereo. More precisely, some notes of it were recognizable behind the roaring engines and the car stereos blaring their own music. The organizer was probably quite older than the crowd.

Or maybe old fashion was new again.

Stick finally stopped and pointed at the two cars in front of them. The first one was a rather inconspicuous black Dodge with a strange machinery on the hood. The second one… could have been built by Tony. Audrey was no specialist, but Phil's influence had rubbed off on her enough to see that this car smelled like big money and the newest technology. The flashy vehicle was very popular. A compact crowd gathered around the high tech car, eager to take a glimpse at the futuristic body and wheels. Or maybe they were just interested in the pills that a hostess distributed more than generously.

Was it how the Red Dawn was distributed?

"What do you think about the high tech driver? Tap on my shoulder if there's anything familiar about him."

So this had nothing to do with the cars. In a way, she felt relieved. She was way out of her depth here.

Audrey looked around for said driver, and gasped as she recognized a now familiar reddish aura.

She tapped on Stick's shoulder, once.

"Like the Red Dawn users?" he asked.

She tapped again, twice. This wasn't that, absolutely not.

"Like our computer guy, then?"

Audrey tapped, once.

Stick nodded, his face undecipherable. "So it wasn't _nothing_ , what you saw earlier."

She was about to kick him in the shin-a trick she now mastered after weeks of cohabitation with the man-when she rather decided to grab his arm and drag him to a more discreet place. The crowd was too absorbed in the upcoming race to notice the strange behavior of a blind old dude, anyway.

"What was that all about?" Stick grumbled, not happy with the turn of event.

Audrey took his face between her hands and made him look in the right direction. He could _see_ her wherever she was… he should be able to see _that_ too.

"What's so special over there?"

Audrey reappeared briefly. Had she been able to learn morse as he'd told her to repeatedly, she might have not needed this to communicate. Another time maybe.

"Don't you see the flaming skull of the Dodge driver? He _saw_ me."

-/-

"Focus!"

Stick's voice was sharp and authoritative as he unfolded his bow and chose his arrow carefully, fixing an explosive charge on it. Audrey nodded weakly, more for her own benefit than his. Ever since she felt the flaming skull's piercing and chilling stare on her, she'd fought the irrepressible urge to just go away and leave Stick alone to deal with this madness.

Just like when she woke up in the depth of the cave, she was terrified.

"Normal people can't see you. That's ninety-nine percent of the population, including your family and your zombie ex. But there's the one percent who can, for one reason or another. Deal with it."

Easier said than done.

"He saw you," Stick went on, "but you saw him, too, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't any more comfortable with the notion than you were."

That was as close to any form of comfort as Stick would ever go. Still, as bad as the old man was at cheering her up, Audrey felt the wave of dread retreat, slowly. Stick lead her to an artificial mound around which the racing cars would turn before rushing back to the finish line. This was where they would intercept the high tech car. It was so easy to lose control in such a tight bend, especially when you lost a tire in the most unexpected way.

Day after day, Audrey had learned not to raise an eyebrow at Stick's ruthless way, or gape at him when he talked about firing explosive arrows at a racing car while playing with his white cane.

In the distance, at the starting line, the speakers stopped blaring and the crowd became silent, as if holding their breath. The only sound was the roaring cars. Then the crowd counted loudly.

3… 2… 1… Go!

The race started. Stick rose and bent his bow, ready to loose the explosive arrow. Audrey got to her designated watching point, to make sure that no unwanted guests would perturb the plan.

The old man didn't like intruders.

The speeding cars approached quickly. The flaming skull and the high tech car jockeyed for first position. Far behind them, it was pure chaos. A couple of cars didn't even make it past the first hundred yards. A little farther from the starting line, a pilot struggled to get out of his smoking, totalled car after a frightening loop.

Madness. It was pure madness.

The two leading cars were already there, none of them decided to slow down for the upcoming bend. Flaming skull had the advantage of being on the inside lane. High tech car was just more powerful but the pilot was an idiot. From where he stood, there was no way he would remain on the track. These were the simple laws of physics. Maybe Stick wouldn't even have to do anything.

Flaming skull entered the bend at full throttle, not even bothering to brake. Burning flames erupted from the strange device on the hood, and the Dodge voluntarily crashed into its rival. As both cars finished their course way out of the track in cloud of polluted dirt, the following competitors passed the bend successfully, too happy to seize their own opportunity to shine.

Audrey heard Stick curse before he folded his bow with quick,precise gestures. She came closer to the crash, hoping that none of the pilots were too injured after such a violent and mindless crash, and waited for Stick to join her.

"I hate intruders."

She snorted from the safety of the shadows.

"Don't snort."

The old man was in a foul mood now. Without any more words, he unsheathed his katana and walked to the crash site stealthily. Audrey followed him, ready to drag him into the shadows with her, whether he wanted or not. The dread was back, heavy in the pit of her stomach. She didn't like how things were going.

They found a hiding place behind a pile of garbage. Fluid leaked from an abandoned fridge, old batteries were covered in rust, a car door without its window, unlabelled cans and various construction materials nobody needed anymore… Toxic garbage for a toxic wasteland.

"You gotta be kidding me…" Stick growled at the sight that welcomed them.

Flaming Skull was out of his car, and circled around his opponent, burning chain in hand.

"Now I know what you meant. A fucking Spirit of Vengeance. As if we needed that."

 _A Spirit of Vengeance_?

"Guy's dead. Made a deal with the devil. Came back," Stick explained quickly. "He's a dweller of the shadows like you, more or less."

 _More or less?_

Now _that_ was precise and enlightening.

"Stay here. You never know how these fuckers react to other ghosts."

Audrey was too busy processing Stick's words to stop him from crawling to the fighting scene where flaming skull was kicking the shit out of his opponent. Said opponent sizzled with crackling electricity when he stood up. If Flaming Skull was surprised by this new development, he didn't show it, and lurched at his opponent again with savage blows, forcing him to step back again and again until the soil moved under his feet.

The high tech driver was a mess at this point, electricity crackling from his useless, broken left arm and shattered helmet. He fell down helplessly and cried out when a young woman stepped out of her hiding place and started to slowly bury him into the shaking ground. The contrast between the petite figure, the teenage goth look and the sheer ferocity of the power displayed by the newcomer was striking.

"Where's Gareth?"

So the pair was looking for someone too. These Red Dawn people were involved in an awfully big number of missing people these days. Stick was nowhere to be seen. From where she stood, the skull's deep voice made Audrey shiver.

"WHERE. IS. HE?" Flaming Skull growled through bared teeth.

The growl became imperious, yet the man refused to talk, even half-buried into a toxic waste land. Flaming skull raised his hand, ready to strike.

He was the one stricken down by a burst of machine-gun fire instead. A third car invited itself to the ball. The newcomers had auras similar to the half-buried pilot. One fell from Stick's sudden attack, another was projected yards away by the young woman while Flaming Skull dealt with a third one. The rescue mission seemed to be a useless one until the driver threw an object in the direction of the fighting group, apparently not concerned with his companions' safety.

Audrey remained glued to her spot. She'd avoided fighting since the pier debacle. The sheer mindless violence of the scene made her stomach turn. What was wrong with these people?

There was no big detonation, just a big flash that left Stick, the young woman, and Flaming Skull petrified. The other team didn't waste any time rescuing their companion and fled the scene-but not without torching the high tech car.

It took several minutes for Stick to recover from the petrifying effect. The other two were still perfectly motionless. The old man jogged to Audrey.

"This is getting bothersome," she heard Stick groan as he motioned her to follow him back to their hiding place. "I think I know who the Hand's working with. I need to do some digging. Meanwhile, you should follow these guys for a while."

Audrey was about to materialize to protest, but Stick raised an authoritative finger to stop her.

"You're out of your depth, lady. I'm probably out of mine too. Shadows have grown out of control, way out of the gutter where they belong."

He paused.

"Tired of losing people."

There was unexpected regret in his voice.

"Now focus. Which articles did you read the most in the _Bulletin_? What news made Everhart foam at the mouth lately, besides the Red Dawn?"

Like every time Stick did this trick, Audrey's panic subsided and her mind got clearer.

Somehow, he reminded her of her parents.

Of her father, who always knew how to make her focus on what was important and forget about the superfluous.

Of her mother, who possessed a sixth sense and always knew when to call and listen.

Without their support, she wouldn't have gotten far in her career.

Not that she would ever admit that to Stick.

Titles on the front page of the _Bulletin_ and announcements on the WHIH news show came back to her mind. _Seism in Dallas. Self-Storage box full of Red Dawn. Big quake in San Francisco. Corrupted politician's vault burst open. SHIELD started the hunt for Quake and other vigilantes…_

"Follow the girl. This is your lucky day. She's your ticket back to SHIELD."

Audrey fully materialized to shake Stick's hand. She could feel the bones and wrinkled skin that betrayed his age. His grip was firm, pressing her slender hand in silent acknowledgement.

Then she vanished again and joined the petrified pair, waiting for them to lead her back the light.


	8. Quake

_**QUAKE**_

 _ **New York City, Late August, 2016**_

Skull guy was the first to come back to his senses. Audrey remained cautiously hidden out of his line of sight as he rushed to his female companion. Maybe he was too preoccupied, but apparently he couldn't sense her presence.

Not that she would take any risk with him.

She peeked nonetheless, from the relative safety of the leaky fridge and rusty cans. Surprisingly, the flaming skull wasn't as visible as before. It was almost transparent now, and Audrey caught a glimpse of the guy's face for the first time as he shook his companion gently.

"Daisy? Come on, Daisy, wake up…"

Freed from whatever demon that possessed him, the young dark-haired man looked like a kind person, out of place in this hell.

"I'm… okay…" _Daisy_ moaned and stepped back from skull guy. "Honestly, Robbie, stop fussing."

Her voice was sharp and distant, contrasting with her youthful face. She stepped away quickly to regroup, nervously combing her short hair through her fingers. For whatever reason she had, Daisy seemed to keep her companion at arm's length.

Audrey knew a emotional hedgehog when she saw one. She'd shared her life with one for a few years.

"Fucking _toasters_. They left. They torched the car. We came all the way from Los Angeles for nothing." _Robbie_ 's tone oozed bitterness and frustration. A sore loser that one.

"No, it wasn't for nothing," Daisy shook her head. "We know that they have Hydra and SHIELD tech. We _know_ how big they are now. Not just in theory."

The pair ranted and vented, totally oblivious of Audrey.

"Speak English please, not _spy language_ ," Robbie snapped.

Audrey chuckled in the shadows. This was a sentiment that she could relate to all too well.

"Sorry," Daisy walked closer to her companion to place a calming hand on his shoulder. "The device they used, to paralyze us. Hydra-the organization we fought against with my SHIELD friends-they used that kind of stuff. It isn't something you'd build in your garage."

"So, you're telling me what? They're too big for us? We give up? Do you see the damage they cause in the streets, those blasted machines?"

Audrey's eyes widened in the shadows. She'd definitely noticed the electricity that came out the high tech pilot. Suddenly, she remembered that Stick's blade hadn't been covered in blood earlier. Yet, she was sure he had struck his opponent at least thrice, which was suspicious enough in itself.

"Of course I did!" Daisy shot back. "We can't just keep on by ourselves. It's a blessing the katana guy was around, and was on our side."

"We don't know he was on our side!" Robbie growled.

The flaming skull reappeared briefly before the young man was projected away by a blast originating from Daisy's hand. The shock had the effect of a cold shower, apparently, since the mask disappeared again.

It was almost as if this guy was possessed. As if he battled permanently against the flaming skull.

"We don't know, you're right. At least you can agree we was against them, right?"

Daisy joined him again, hands raised in a pacifying gesture. Robbie nodded.

"We need help."

"Whose help?" Robbie's voice was more bark than bite at this point. "The two guys from SHIELD who are always trailing you?"

"For example. They can help."

"Oh, I'm sure of it. _Coulson this. Mack that,_ " the young man snarled. "I thought you were done with SHIELD."

To her credit, Daisy didn't back down. "I'm done with SHIELD. But I trust Coulson."

In the shadows, Audrey fought the urge to reappear and run to the arguing pair, thousands of questions rushing in her head. _How do you know Phil? Is he all right? What happened to his arm? What did SHIELD do to him?_

 _Where is he?_

" _I_ don't trust them. _I_ don't know them. I can't take the risk to be sent to this fucking prison in the middle of the ocean."

Daisy only nodded.

"Who'll take care of Gabe if I'm in prison? You? Your friends? And you should be more careful too…" Robbie stormed back to his car. "They might care about you, but what if their orders are to stop you? Stop you at any cost? What if they _can't_ disobey this order, even if they don't like it?"

Daisy nodded again.

"You made your point. You know where to find me once you've calmed down." The young woman's tone was cold and collected, not unlike a voice Audrey knew very well.

How many times had she heard Phil deal with angry agents on the phone? It didn't matter how furious he was himself when an impromptu phone call disturbed their weekend together, he had this uncanny ability to defuse the most volatile conversation.

Robbie drove away without a word, and Daisy walked to her own vehicle parked on the fringe of the waste land.

Audrey followed from a distance.

-/-

Daisy's steps led them-without her knowing that she had a new shadow-to a beat up white van. As the young woman closed the passenger door and drove off, Audrey slipped into the back and surveyed her surroundings, her curiosity silencing her shame, for now.

The van wasn't just a vehicle. Daisy lived there. A cot was installed on the left side of the van with big and colorful cushions. Drapes of the same hippie trend added a personal, comfy touch to the most precarious accommodation. There was electronic equipment everywhere, all connected to a laptop that had the place of honor in this van. The sliding door on the right was covered with pictures, data and press articles. News about the Red Dawn. Reports about gang wars in the US and Mexico. Files about leaks in the Pentagon these past few months.

One article caught Audrey's attention in particular: a piece Karen Page wrote for the _Bulletin_ the week before. The young journalist was the new star in town, and her coverage of the Red Dawn debacle was more than thought-provoking. One way or another, she managed to get her hands on some old files and established a more than disturbing parallel between the current _epidemics_ and some buried black op that used LSD as a way to stimulate psychic powers. Other media mocked the theory, and Christine Everhart was on the first line of this fight.

But they never debunked the theory. Nobody did.

Obviously, Daisy thought there was something true about Karen Page's theory and reasoning, if the notes and other files clipped with the article were any reference. Close to the laptop, the partition that separated the back of the van from the driver's seat looked like a shrine to a long lost family. In one pics, Audrey recognized Phil. It was a candid photo, taken in a kitchen with red brick walls. He was cooking pancakes with the attentive and boyish expression she all too well. He looked quite well. He still both his hands. His receding hairline receded even more. There were more crows feet at the corner of his smiling eyes-the telling sign that the candid wasn't so candid after all. He was even fitter than she last remembered him.

Not that she hadn't liked his slightly softening belly back then. It meant more command duties and less field work. That was what she believed. A soft-bellied Phil meant a safe Phil…

What a stupid illusion.

Audrey shook her head, as if that would make the past few years go away, and kept on observing the pics. She recognized agents Simmons, Fitz and Tripp. There were other people she didn't know. May was there too, and even Andrew-so that was where he had vanished all this time. They'd been in close contact after Phil's _death_ and after the fall of SHIELD. She'd told him her lingering impression and doubts about Phil's death.

The mysterious fourth agent.

The dug up grave.

Their last session had been… strange. Andrew had been very evasive. Then he vanished altogether.

A tiny smile formed on Audrey's lips. Of course Andrew couldn't let May deal with the fall of SHIELD on her own.

One last pic caught her attention. Phil, Andrew, Daisy and two people were gathered around a game of _Risk_. Strangely enough, May was absent. Maybe she was the one taking the photo? This wasn't her kind of thing, though.

Before and after whatever happened in Bahrain.

Daisy looked very focused, and so was the tall black man besides her. The red-haired woman wore an expression of intense concentration, too but there was a hint of dawning realization. Andrew rolled his eyes, his expression already defeated.

Audrey recognized that look.

He realized what the others didn't know yet. The game was lost, and Phil had won. As usual. It was frustrating. Only May knew how to beat him from time to time, and only if she managed to convince the other players to gang up on Phil.

However, the pic, as heartwarming as it was, looked more recent. Phil's left hand was missing, and he didn't wear a prosthetic at all. The sight of his handless arm made her throat constrict. His tense jaw and pale complexion brought tears to her eyes. He looked like he was in so much pain.

The squeak of the brakes brought Audrey back to the present. She heard the driver door open and close. She started to follow Daisy to a park nearby a religious building.

 _Saint Agnes Orphanage_.

On a bench, a lonely figure waited, playing with a white cane. Audrey retreated abruptly when she recognized the blind man from the church. Like the first time, she saw him _look_ in her direction. Of course he could see her. The guy was Stick's student.

The son the old man would never recognize.

Like the first time, the blind man remained silent and turned his attention to Daisy who spoke first.

"Thanks for the intel. We almost caught one of them. He escaped, though."

"Much ado about nothing, then." He spoke in low tones, but thanks to Stick's teachings, Audrey's hearing had improved considerably these past few weeks.

"Nah. They gave some more leads to explore…" To Audrey's ears, the hidden worry was obvious, and she supposed that Stick's student felt it as well. "What about the kids?"

"It's done." Matt humored her and accepted the change of subject. The way he nodded, very reminiscent of Stick, told that he didn't buy Daisy's false confidence. "Father Lantom talked to the Reverend Mother. She won't ask any questions. The kids will be safe. Do you have the papers?"

"In this folder." Daisy sat down beside him. "That's good. Thank you, Matt. I owe you."

 _Matty_ shrugged. "No, you don't."

"They're not…" the young woman started to protest, but Matt cut her off.

"They're not my _people_?" He snorted dismissively. "They're from here. I'm the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. I protect my home and those who live in there."

Daisy nodded, conceding the point. "And I protect my own kind, wherever they are. Where does that lead us?" Her tone seemed defeated. This was the voice of a woman at the end of her rope.

"On a path of pain and endless suffering…" Matt's voice was no better.

"Don't try your catholic guilt on me, Matt."

"Wouldn't dream of it…" He chuckled as he stood. "I promise, the kids will be all right."

"As all right as anybody can be in this _place_ …" Daisy snapped back, her tone suddenly resentful.

"They are good people, Daisy. Your situation was… particular. They took good care of me."

Daisy stood up as well. "Good for you. See you around, then."

"You know where to find me…" Matt offered his hand with a charming smile.

"Following the trail of beat up thugs. Now go and treat your wounds."

Audrey waited for Matt to disappear around the corner before she walked closer to the young woman. She was sitting again, her shoulders withdrawn, staring at the orphanage walls with a blank expression.

Half an hour passed, and the young woman didn't move a muscle. Audrey walked even closer. Contrary to Matt or this Robbie guy, Daisy had absolutely no idea that a ghost was standing right next to her. At the pit of her stomach, Audrey felt uncomfortable observing someone like that, without their knowing.

But this woman was her ticket back to SHIELD.

Another half hour passed. A couple of drunk idiots tried to _talk_ to Daisy but quickly retreated when the ground slightly quaked under their feet. Audrey thought it was quite a careless thing to do when all the big US agencies were after you. The young woman sat down again, and Audrey could see her shoulders trembling slightly.

Maybe Daisy was really tired of dealing with this world saving business on her own. Maybe she wanted to be found.

Down the street, an engine roared and tires screeched on the burning asphalt. This was a very familiar sound and Audrey had to hide again behind a bush. Robbie slammed on the brakes and jumped out of his car with an alarmed expression.

"Daisy! This is bad! The ATCU boss…"

The commotion seemed to be a wake up call.

"Talbot?"

"Yeah. It's all over the news. Home invasion gone bad. He's in critical condition in DC!"

Daisy shook her head disbelievingly. "Damn, I was sure he was the mole! It makes no sense!"

"Do you think it's retaliation?"

She shook her head again. "Only one way to know."

Without waiting for her companion's agreement, she walked to the Dodge, her steps full of purpose again.

From her hiding place, Audrey considered her options. Talbot was the front guy of the ATCU. From what she saw on TV, SHIELD, and Phil, backed Talbot.

She needed to go to DC, as well.


	9. The Ghost and the Zombie

_**THE GHOST AND THE ZOMBIE**_

 _ **Washington DC - National Naval Medical Center - Early September, 2016**_

In spite of the very high security net around the hospital-after all Bethesda usually served the US presidents-Audrey slipped into the main building easily. Unlike Hell's Kitchen, the place wasn't crowded with powered people able to see her in the shadows.

In a way, it was a relief. Without her advantage of invisibility, Audrey never would have passed the security control just out of the Medical Center metro station. In her current situation, Audrey wouldn't have been able to justify her presence here, or even show a proper ID. Slipping through the increased military patrols on South Wood Road to the main entrance would have been terribly tricky as well, if not downright impossible. She grinned when she thought of the treasures of invention that Daisy and Robbie would have to deploy to enter the perimeter. Maybe they still were finding their way in. In fact, the biggest obstacle Audrey encountered was the labyrinthine building.

Ghosts couldn't just ask for directions…

Then again, Audrey couldn't expect clear directions leading anybody to the ATCU director's room. After her fair share of wrong turns, she finally found the right corridor on the right floor. There were more suits and uniforms than nurses and physicians here. All the doors were open and empty but one. Armed Marines stood vigil by the closed door.

At the very end of the corridor, she recognized the tall, muscular man from Daisy's photos. He was talking with a smaller man.

 _Phil_.

As Audrey expected, he was on the first line. On TV, she'd seen him follow Talbot like a shadow at the White House. Guessing that SHIELD, and Phil, would protect the recovering general wasn't that far of stretch.

Phil was there, less than ten yards away from her, yet he'd never seemed more out of her reach.

It was when the reality of her condition hit Audrey, hard.

She had been so focused on escaping from the shadows, she had been so busy considering her situation alone, snorting at Everhart's fear-mongering ways, that she never realized what her current condition actually meant in the big, wide world. Here she was, standing in the middle of a heavily guarded corridor unbeknownst to anybody, free to act as she wished. Audrey shuddered at what a less pacifistic person would do with dark force.

They could be trained killer… They could be as obsessed as Marcus Daniels...

Hell, they didn't even need to be that. Somebody could have taken their loved ones hostage, forcing them to do their dirty work for them. There were empty syringes in the nurses' station. Taking one of them, while remaining invisible, and slipping into Talbot's room would be so easy. Air bubble in his IV, and the general would be long gone.

Audrey let out a shuddering breath. She was a threat, whether she wanted to be or not. She could black out an entire block. She could kill someone by absorbing their energy if she wasn't careful. She could go wherever she wanted, and do whatever she wished, like travel from New York to Washington totally _incognito_.

Of course, Audrey would never harm anybody. She was an honest citizen who wished nothing more than to resume her old life. Play cello. Hug her parents again. Butt heads with Edu. Share this life again with Phil if she was lucky. Maybe consider some changes if she felt crazy enough. She wanted simple things.

But the rest of society wouldn't see her condition that way. They would see the threat. They would be obsessed by the threat, and Audrey wouldn't blame them totally.

In some terrible and frightening way, Christine Everhart was right.

Suddenly, the future seemed very bleak. Phil was standing a few yards away, still listening to his partner's report, his face pensive. The stubble on his cheeks and the circles under his eyes betrayed his exhaustion. There was something hard about his expression as he scanned the corridor.

He couldn't see her, but Audrey forced herself to remain still.

Phil was guarding Talbot's room and she was a moving security breach. An intruder. A potential threat.

What was she thinking?

The utter feeling of violation as someone walked through her-she hated that sensation so much-brought her back to the here and now.

"Coulson!"

Audrey recognized May's voice. She wasn't happy with Phil.

"We can't keep Talbot's wife away for much longer."

 _What are you thinking?_

May didn't speak the words, but her tone was _transparent_. And their partner's interrogating stare was eloquent as well.

"Coulson, the Director doesn't want any wrinkles…" the big man said.

Obviously, Phil had something up his sleeve, and he wasn't willing to share yet.

Audrey knew this blank expression all too well. They'd almost never fought, but the rare times they had, this stubborn poker face of his drove her crazy.

"Fine," he conceded with a defeated sigh. From where she stood, Audrey could see the wheels turning in his brain, at full-speed. "Mack, bring a doctor with you. They'll explain the rules… Short visit… Under the surveillance of a doctor. May will be there too."

"Mrs. Talbot won't like that," _Mack_ shook his head.

"Nope, but that's how it is."

Phil's reply was final.

"What do you fear?" May asked once their fellow agent was out of earshot.

"Just a gut feeling…"

"You think there's a link with the leaks in the Pentagon."

He nodded weakly.

"I'll roll with your plan," May said, "but you go and get some sleep, now. No discussion."

Without protest, Phil gathered his things, a testimony of how exhausted he was. Instinctively, Audrey stepped aside as he shambled down the corridor. She remained glued, unable to move, when he walked past her. On the other hand of the corridor, the door opened and Mack appeared again, followed by the doctor and the woman who probably was Talbot's wife. Her heels clicked loudly on the floor and the stare she directed at Phil was anything but benevolent. There was poison in these eyes.

Audrey gasped in the shadows and her feet moved on their own. She _had_ to follow Phil.

He was right to be wary of this woman, much more than he realized. This woman wasn't the wife of anyone. The vicious stare directed at Phil wasn't the one of a grieving wife resenting a overzealous bodyguard. It was the one of someone whose plans were disrupted.

The woman was another robot. Like the ones in New York.

And Audrey had to tell Phil.

-/-

Audrey followed Phil along the corridors and up the stairs to the floor above Talbot's, where SHIELD had installed their quarters. In passing, she recognized Agent Fitz hunched over some sort of console, headphones on, eyes glued to the screen in front of him. The young agent had changed considerably over a couple of years, as men were bound to do at this age, stepping away from their childish looks. His jaw was stronger than she remembered, and so were the shoulders under the light grey dress shirt. Long gone was the timid agent she met when Daniels re-entered her life.

"Fitz, tell me I'm wrong." Phil stopped behind the younger agent to watch the screen himself. Obviously, he and his agent were onto something.

Audrey didn't understand the technology, but the grainy screen revealed a reality she was very familiar with. Whatever sensors and cameras agent Fitz was using , they _saw_ the same thing as she did from the shadows.

"I wish I could, sir." Fitz took his headphones off and shook his head. "The pattern's the same. The signature's the same. It's an LMD. But I still can't believe that Radcliffe..."

There was pain in the young man's voice, pain and betrayal.

"Let's not jump to conclusions yet," Phil cut him. "Sorry for the extra work, Fitz. Go back to your assignment."

Agent Fitz's smile was mirthless. "Yeah, scanning the lobby for any suspicious activity…"

Phil put a comforting hand on the young man's shoulder before walking away. He made a call as he fumbled with the keys to open the last room in the corridor.

"May? Talbot's wife is gone?" He smiled patiently, waiting for May to finish her rant. Audrey didn't need to listen the words. _Stubborn idiot_ was more than probably thrown into the mix. "Okay, I'm going to get some sleep, but before I want you to have Talbot switch rooms. If the wife comes back, tell her that his condition worsened suddenly or... anything. Tell her he's back to the ICU. We'll take Talbot back to SHIELD tomorrow."

Another rant. Phil stepped inside. Audrey followed after a second of hesitation.

"Not losing my mind. Can't talk about it here. Just trust me here. And screw the Director."

Phil hung up and tossed the phone on the mattress next to him. The room was small and reeked of hospital disinfectant. Audrey hated that scent. She'd smelled it far too much as a child after the car accident. A couple of black backpacks and SHIELD equipment had been haphazardly thrown into a corner. The table was cluttered with half-eaten take away and two orange pill bottles.

Oblivious to her intrusion, Phil started to undress. Audrey felt a wave of guilt and shame submerge her, and she ran out.

Why couldn't she just reveal herself? She'd waited so long for this moment. And she never had any problem interacting with Stick before. She knew how to communicate with people, even in her condition.

Was she afraid of she'd become? Ashamed of it?

What if she wasn't welcome? So much time had passed since her disappearance. More than a year.

Inside Phil's bathroom, the shower stopped, and she heard the faint sound of music, muted before by the dripping water. The sound was crappy, surely coming from his phone. Only she could hear them, the sound was too low, and Agent Fitz had his headphones on again.

Besides, how couldn't she recognize the music? It was from her latest solo album. A very shallow part of her swelled with pride as she listened to her own version of the _Game of Thrones_ theme. She was rarely happy with her work, but she quite liked what she did there. Another track followed and she recognized it as well, her throat tightening suddenly.

Phil still listened to her music.

Without thinking, she walked through the door again, just when Phil stepped out of the small bathroom, a white towel around his hips. He wasn't wearing his prosthetic; it lay abandoned on the bed.

The sight was unsettling.

But it still was less horrifying than the ugly scar on his back, right between his shoulder blades, as if…

Phil retrieved his arm and start to dress into fresh clothes. As he did so, he turned and faced her unknowingly.

Audrey saw the scar's twin on his chest, right on his sternum. Nobody could survive such a wound, it was impossible. She knew enough anatomy to visualize the organs that were torn apart by the blade that obviously went through Phil's torso.

Spinal cord, heart, lung.

Still bare-chested-like in any hospital, the room temperature was unbearably high-Phil collapsed more than sat on the chair by the cluttered table, rummaging for some leftover food. He looked so exhausted and distraught now that he was sheltered from prying eyes. But Audrey was there to witness his pain as he ate some cold pizza and started to read files about the Red Dawn and the infamous Quake. In other circumstances, she would have found the reading glasses endearing. Now and there, she just shook her head sadly. Surely, working his ass off wasn't what May intended when she told him to go get some sleep.

Audrey hated it when he was being unreasonable. Not that she wasn't guilty of the same crime, eliciting the same frustration in him.

But, right now, _he_ was the idiot.

Not bothering to reappear, she joined him at the table, stole his pen from his slackened fingers. She made profit of his moment of stupefaction to put the papers back into the files and stepped away with them, pretty sure that the sight of floating objects was striking enough.

Phil jumped to his feet and reached for his gun on the table. Audrey didn't give him the opportunity as she materialized in her shadowy form, dark fingers wrapped around his wrist.

Dark force gave her the advantage.

"I'm still here. I promise, I'm still here with you." Her voice was raspy, so unlike her real voice. But she hoped that he would recognize his own words.

They were standing in this hospital room, only a couple of inches away, closer than they'd ever been since the Daniels debacle. Back then, he was trapped in his commitment to SHIELD. Now, she was the one trapped in the shadows.

"Long time no see," she went on, forcing her tone to be casual.

Phil was still speechless, motionless. Audrey had to force herself not to run her fingers over his torso, not to trace the scars that took him away from her, not to cup his stubbled cheek.

"I want to send a letter of complaint to Fury. I sent you to them alive and whole, and they returned you back in pieces," she felt the muscles in his forearm relax. His fingers loosened their hold on the gun. His eyes darted from her face to her dark hand wrapped around his wrist. When she released him, he didn't move at first.

"You were gone. I thought I'd lost you." His voice was barely above a whisper as if he still processed the situation. His hand moved though and he laced his fingers through hers. "They buried you."

"That's the pot calling the kettle black. I saw your coffin lowered into the ground, you know."

Phil didn't reply and Audrey didn't know how to go on after that. What could one say? Both had a tombstone somewhere. Both had cried over the other's grave. What crime did they commit in past existences to deserve this?

Then she felt his arms around her. They were warm and strong. His heart beat steadily in his chest.

They were both alive. They still had a future.

Phil held her even tighter in his slightly shaking arms and she wrapped her arms around his neck just as tight; wishing she could touch him _for real_ , trace the freckles on his shoulders with her own skin, and not just via the manipulation of dark force.

Soon, she'd have to push him away and explain her condition to him before vanishing again. Soon, she'd have to tell him everything she witnessed in the past few weeks, the Red Dawn, the robots, Daisy… She was still a ghost, and ghosts couldn't stay with the living too long. Soon she'll have to go.

But not yet.

For now, she relished the sensation of his hands cupping her cheeks, his movements reminiscent of a blind man recognizing a loved face.

For now, her own fingers traced the scar on his chest, on his back, brushed against the prosthetic arm, testing the difference between the real skin and the fake one.

They deserved that much.

-/-

 _ **Chesapeake Bay - Early September, 2016**_

" _So… Should I pack for cold or hot weather? Or little bit of both?" Phil's attention was on the road ahead of them, but Audrey was sure that his eyes observed her from behind the aviator sunglasses._

 _It was their tradition. In turn, they surprised each other with a mysterious vacation destination . This year, was her turn. The past few months had been rough, bumpy even, because of whatever mission consumed Phil. At times, she even wondered if this desk job with high responsibilities wasn't even worse than the field. Before, she worried about his physical integrity. Now, she hated to see what the job did to his mental health._

" _Little bit of both."_

 _Audrey had pulled quite of a few strings and reconnected with old acquaintances, but the three weeks over Christmas break she'd organized in Japan would blow his mind for sure._

" _That's not very helpful," he whined as they left the highway, stirring Lola into the net of Virginia back roads._

 _Autumn in the area was just glorious. In a few days, she would fly back to Portland. But for now, she just enjoyed the warm sun on her face, and Phil's growing puzzlement. This year, she was playing hard ass. He had guessed too easily last time, or he had cheated and used SHIELD wizardry to hack into her computer._

" _City or outdoor clothes?"_

 _Her teasing grin got wider. "Little bit of both."_

The weather was warmer than when they last drove in the area. This was such a glorious autumn Sunday, and they had decided on a whim to go to their favorite lobster restaurant on the Chesapeake Bay.

Phil drove Lola effortlessly through the sharp turns of the Virginia backroads.

It felt like before. As if on cue, _Country Roads-_ the punk version of the 90s-started playing.

It felt like before. Almost.

Audrey sat on the passenger seat, but Phil had to ask repeatedly if she was _there_ before speaking. She had used her shadowy form too long the night before, and she didn't dare take any more risks.

Besides, they weren't out for lobsters.

The plan was simple. Phil let the SHIELD convoy go ahead before following them from a distance, with a slightly different itinerary. If something went wrong, Lola would get them back to the convoy in no time. Meanwhile, May acted as a decoy with a Quinjet, and another convoy drove north to New York right now.

Hopefully, it would confuse the _toasters_ long enough.

Audrey hadn't been surprised when she heard Phil and his team refer to the LMDs that way. Of course, he couldn't let an occasion pass to reference his geek culture. He could be such a nerd at times.

So far, the plan had gone smoothly. They had driven out DC without encountering any problem. Audrey didn't know their exact destination, but she recognized the area. They were getting close to Norfolk. The _toasters_ didn't seem as smart and cunning as their fictional counterparts, which was a blessing. In an hour or so, they would be at SHIELD headquarters, which localization wasn't such a secret now that the agency was official again.

"'Audrey? Hang on tight."

The warning came too late and the sudden U-turn Phil made while starting the flight mode caught Audrey by surprise and almost threw her out of the car. When Lola was stable again, racing across the fields to the highway, Audrey noticed that half her right leg had gone _through_ the door. Out of spite, she hit Phil on the shoulder, _hard_. She couldn't believe that she needed to use this particular skill she dedicated to her exchanges with Stick.

Phil had the decency to grimace a bit, but his expression became tense again quickly.

"You still there? Sorry about that. The convoy is under attack."

Audrey swore in the shadows. _Fucking bastards._ The _toasters_ seemed to live up to their fictional counterparts, after all, and this wasn't good news.

The vision of chaos they discovered when they reached the scene was even worse.

Phil parked Lola under the pines, at a safe distance from the road, grabbed his gun and jogged to the convoy, mumbling a very chivalrous _stay here_ that Audrey was quick to ignore.

"Shit! They were waiting for us..." he gritted between his teeth, hidden behind a mountain-laurel bush.

From her position behind him, she could see the truck that had served as a road-block and a high tech car that looked very familiar. The sight of petrified agents, stopped in their tracks as they aimed at the assailants with their guns or just got out of their own car was far too familiar as well. All the assailants wore hoods, but Audrey could recognize the _toasters_ ' aura, and the ninjas' deadly moves.

There was a silver lining though, since the intruders had to deal with unwanted guests of their own. A very familiar Dodge had violently crashed into a second futuristic car, totalling it. Flaming Skull was back with a vengeance and faced four ninjas on his own. The unstoppable furor that fueled each swing of his flaming chains painfully reminded Audrey of Stick's words.

 _A dead man who made a pact with the devil. A spirit of vengeance._

"Guess you didn't listen to me," Phil whispered.

 _Good guess_. Audrey tapped on his shoulder, once.

"You didn't tell me about this guy." There was a hint of reproach in his voice, but he was back at his usual business voice. After the Daniels case, she only heard him speak like that to his agents on the phone. "You know him?"

Another tap.

"Friendly?"

Audrey hesitated, then tapped his shoulder once. How did you translate _kinda_?

"Good enough, I guess."

Meanwhile, Daisy dealt with the remaining assailants, projecting them far into the woods, breaking their limbs with a simple wave of her hand, shattering their weapons when they got close to her.

However, as fierce as the former SHIELD agent and her companion were, they were still seriously outnumbered and couldn't stop the LMDs from forcing Talbot's ambulance open. Before Audrey could react, she saw Phil jump out from his hiding place and run to stop them.

Like the night when she witnessed the blind violence of the fight against the _toasters_ , Audrey remained glued to her spot, as if she were suddenly turned into the powerless spectator of a slow motion massacre.

Two LMDs stepped into the ambulance to retrieve Talbot, but Phil engaged the one which remained outside, using his prosthetic arm to his advantage. He'd lost a limb but gained unnatural strength in his new left arm. After a short struggle, he managed to hold his opponent with a vicious key, until crackling electricity from his arm knocked the LMD out.

One.

However, Phil was just a man fighting robots. He was still catching his breath when the two LMDs stepped outside, furious.

Outwitted.

Audrey still couldn't move, even as one grabbed Phil violently by the collar, lifting him from the ground while the other one tore her hood away.

" _Where is he?"_

Talbot's wife, or whatever creature that replaced her, wasn't really happy with this new development.

"Not here, obviously."

Audrey couldn't believe that Phil could be so flippant in such a situation. He knew she was here. He couldn't put her through this nightmare again. Did he have so much trust in this Daisy?

 _Wifey_ 's angry growl turned into a cry of pain when a shock wave threw her on the ground, against the truck that blocked the road, along with Phil and the LMD that held him.

"Coulson!" Daisy ran to them, not even bothering to hide the panic in her voice. "You alright?"

Robbie followed close, his thirst for blood palpable.

Audrey remained immobile, petrified as if one of the LMDs' grenades had hit her, even when the chaos in front of her became utter hell. Bile rose in her throat as she saw with her own eyes what was Phil's life when he was away from her.

 _Wifey_ stood up first, aiming an automatic gun at the running pair. She didn't fire, because Phil jumped on her and they rolled down the side of road in a furious mêlée, disappearing in a cloud of dust. Robbie lurched at the last LMD, flaming chain ready to strike furiously, only to be stopped by Daisy's shock wave.

The last LMD had thrown his own hood away.

 _Phil_.

The bastard looked just like Phil. The clothes weren't exactly the same, but they were quite close to his current wardrobe-jeans and dark shirt. The LMD's aura was unmistakable, but neither Daisy nor Robbie could see the difference.

Audrey _could_.

Just like when she stopped Tim from shooting himself, just like when she tried to escape from her pursuers at the pier, Audrey moved without even thinking about it.

One moment, she was glued to her spot, scared, petrified, powerless.

The next, she was standing in front Daisy and Robbie, her left hand on the truck, looking at her right hand with bewilderment, quite not sure how she produced such a blast of dark force that the LMD lay contorted like a marionette a good hundred of yards away from them.

Audrey didn't give the pair the time to react and vanished again, searching for Phil. She followed the trail of broken bushes and found him a good eight yards lower, by the stony riverside, struggling to get back on his feet. _Wifey_ was immobile, face down in the running water. As if he could sense her worry through the shadows, he looked around, grimacing. There was a nasty gash on his forehead. His shirt was torn, revealing another deep wound, surely caused by the knife still in the LMD's hand.

As badly hurt as Phil was, that wasn't the sight that made bile rise in Audrey's throat. The blue blood and quickly healing wounds were.

"Audrey? You there?"

She walked to him and grabbed his arm, helping him to stand and catch his breath. They were alone. Not for long, though. In the distance, she could hear Daisy calling for Phil, tumbling down the steep slope between the rocks and bushes.

"I'll be alright, just give me a moment."

Audrey wanted to scream. It wasn't a new thing. He was used to that. Was that why he took so many stupid risks?

"You're angry."

 _You bet!_

"Can we keep it between us, please?"

The pain on his face wasn't due to his wounds. Not the physical ones, at least. She pressed the arm she held, once, before stepping aside. Phil barely had the time to wipe the blue stains off his forehead-only a nasty bruise remained-before Daisy engulfed him in a fierce hug.


	10. Haunting the Playground

**HAUNTING THE PLAYGROUND**

 **SHIELD Headquarters - Playground - Mid September, 2016.**

"You realize you're supposed to stay in your cell and not visit around? We are prisoners."

Daisy's tone wasn't exactly bitter. Defeated would be the more precise word. Audrey ignored the unwelcoming words and traced a beeline to the couch, grabbing the TV control on the way, not bothering to reappear. Daisy was used by the daily intrusions now, and whoever who watched the white cells was hopefully used to floating objects on the surveillance videos.

"Thanks for stopping by, anyway."

In spite of the thankful words, Daisy remained glued to her spot, not moving a limb, stubbornly staring at the ceiling from her bed. A true hedgehog. Audrey knew how to recognize an emotional hedgehog when she saw one-she shared the life of one-and she let Daisy be, for now. Instead, she frowned as she shuffled through the channels, in search of the last results of the Four Nations-not that she had any illusions about the outcome of a New Zealand v South Africa game played in Kiwi land. Some things were unstoppable. The latest generation of All Blacks was one, for instance…

Robbie, Ghost Rider as Daisy called him, was another, frightening one. After SHIELD reinforcements joined them in the Chesapeake area, he'd wasted no time and jumped into his car, leaving a blazing trail behind him. Daisy hadn't been so quick-or maybe she'd been unwilling-and let them put her into some sort of pod, then transfer her to this white cell.

Audrey had a cell of her own-theoretically, at least. The Director's orders were anything but ambiguous. Whatever personal ties she had with Phil, she was an unknown and unregistered gifted person and was to be treated as such.

However, these cells were made to suppress people's powers, not cure Audrey's condition or give her a physical body. While Agent Fitz struggled to adapt the ancient system crafted by Howard Stark to help Jason Wilkes back in the 40's, Audrey fought against boredom and loneliness.

The Playground was huge and full of people wary of gifted people. Phil and May had been dispatched to wrap up the Talbot case.

At long last, she found the channel she wanted, just as the post-game report started… 41-13, 6 tries, was a slaughter. Her father was probably brooding in his beer this weekend.

"Sore loser, aren't you?"

The words stung but Audrey couldn't deny it. Behind her, she could hear Daisy shift on the mattress and get up.

"Why don't you watch on your own TV?"

Audrey cringed in the shadows. The day before, Fitz thought he'd found a way to adapt Stark's designs to Audrey's peculiar condition; in some way yet to be determined, she was a mix between Jason Wilkes and Marcus Daniels, which made the engineering far trickier. They'd made a test. For an hour or two, Audrey walked around her cell-or rather stumbled around, as if her limbs had forgotten how to function properly. She even enjoyed her first meal in a very long time and turned on the TV, already thinking how nice it would be to wrap her arms around Phil for real. Then, all the lights went off, the screen went black, and she felt the dreaded influx of energy before retreating hastily into the shadows.

Fortunately, if the cell couldn't stop her from coming and going, at least its walls contained her absorption abilities, and the base suffered no further damage.

So close, yet so far away. The story of her life these past few months.

Daisy joined her on the couch, a still timid but kind smile on her lips. Audrey had known her for less than two weeks, and she'd already realized that even when the young woman was in the deepest pit of self-hatred, she always managed to try and comfort the people around her.

"Be patient. Fitz always finds a solution."

-/-

Maybe Audrey had spent too much time on her own, or around a misanthropic bastard like Stick, but she couldn't help to feel like what was supposed to be her cell was a bit overcrowded at the moment. The lonely and blinding white room-how SHIELD didn't expect their special guests not to go bonkers in such a sterile atmosphere, that was beyond her-buzzed with activity while SHIELD agents tried their hand at some giant meccano.

Earlier in the afternoon, a passably excited Agent Fitz burst into the room followed by Agent Simmons and Mack, the three of them carrying bits and parts of a rather antiquated machine. Daisy followed, laptop in hand. Apparently, the boss' orders with regards to the rogue agent weren't considered gospel around here.

"Coulson didn't give Fury's toolbox to our dear director, and we found out that Peggy Carter kept Howard Stark's machine in a remote SHIELD storage unit in Switzerland," Daisy explained, frowning at her laptop screen as if she were reading some nonsensical Ikea assembly plan.

"Tricking our colleagues into sending it to the Playground without telling the big boss was easier than figuring that thing out…" Fitz muttered, his expression puzzled when he realized that the square plug definitely wouldn't fit into the round socket.

Even if Audrey had yet to manifest herself, Phil's Scooby gang included her in their conversation naturally, like Stick and the rest of the New York crew did.

Been there, seen that…

When Daniels first perturbed her carefully organized existence-she'd had her fill of agitation as a child with her parents' politics back home-the crazy weirdness of her situation almost drove her mad. When Phil entered her life, treating the whole thing in his so typical business as usual way, her shattered world stopped spinning uncontrollably.

As doubtful as she was of the ongoing experience-contrary to Jason Wilkes, she absorbed energy, and the team had obviously a hard time understanding Howard Stark's designs-Audrey couldn't help but feel reassured.

Grounded.

If they failed today, they'd find a way another day. And another one. Like Phil, giving up wasn't a part of their vocabulary. It comforted her that he had been surrounded by such good people in the past few years.

"Don't worry," Jemma turned around briefly, not realizing Audrey was facing the opposite direction. "They brought me back from an unknown planet using a 19th century device… In comparison, this is a walk in a park, isn't it Fitz?"

In the shadows, Audrey snorted. Jemma Simmons still was a terrible liar. Like in Portland, when Phil's name came up in the conversation after Audrey woke from the blast, the way the young agent took a thoughtful pause before speaking betrayed her doubts.

"A walk in the park?" Mack grumbled, comparing the electrical part he had pieced together with the design on Daisy's screen, once, twice, three times. This man was a careful one. "More like a run in the Rocky Mountains, in the middle of winter."

He looked up and watched in the right direction, a sweet smile on his lips. "We don't want to deep fry Coulson's girlfriend, right?"

This was a sentiment Audrey agreed with wholeheartedly.

-/-

And Audrey didn't fry. Or make the base explode. Or implode. Nor did she send it into another dimension.

Howard Stark's Faraday cage became her solace, albeit a small one. There she could eat whole meals, and talk with people. Even touch them without fear of draining them to the last drop of their life like Daniels. When Jemma-abandoning all preconceptions about typical British aloofness and stiff upper lip-engulfed her into a welcoming bear hug, Audrey finally realized how much she had missed these simple things for the last year.

For now, one of those simple things was restraining herself from moaning with pleasure as she took the first bite of the medium rare steak in front of her under the slightly amused gaze of Melinda May-everything was slight with her anyway, like slightly disapproving when Phil was being an idiot or slightly vulnerable when she was dying inside after Bahrain.

"So Simmons finally let you off the hook for more solid food?"

Audrey nodded and took another bite. God, she was hungry.

For the first few days of her return to the land of materiality, Jemma had insisted that they needed to take things slowly, in order to see how much her physiology had been affected by the experience. Things progressed slowly from IVs to soups and finally real meals when the physician decided that Audrey's skin-and-bones silhouette, unexpected clumsiness, and general exhaustion were the result of poor nutrition and lack of actual exercise, and nothing more sinister.

She just needed food, rehab, and actual sleep.

May waved at the pile of tools and tech Fitz had left on a table.

"That's the next step? Transforming the whole room into a Faraday cage?"

"Apparently, so I can move and exercise, and you know, live a little more normally," Audrey replied as she started to struggle a bit with the coordination needed to cut her meat.

"Hey, let me," May said when the knife slipped on the plate with screeching sound.

Of course May would notice right away.

"You have to be patient, everything will be alright in time. Fitz will definitely find a way to miniaturize the system. You should see what he did with Coulson's arm…" the agent talked with her usual calmness and started to cut the meat with precise, measured gestures.

Sounds like something Andrew would say.

Fortunately, Audrey stopped herself before a terrible slip-up-she still couldn't believe he was gone-and reached for her glass of water instead with a slightly trembling hand.

Yes, she could finally enjoy the simple pleasures of life again, but a total recovery looked very distant. Would she be able to resume her career at all? With the Sokovia Accords, would she ever find an orchestra willing to hire her?

May gave the plate back before Audrey could plunge further into doubt and self-misery.

"Thanks to your information, we have a better grasp on those LMDs. Talbot's out of danger, and we found his wife, the real one." The agent helped herself with a glass of water. "Coulson and the Director went to Langley. They think the CIA profited from the fall of SHIELD and hoarded old files that should be relevant to the LMD case."

"You've been busy, as usual," Audrey smiled between bites. "No rest for the wicked, right?"

In a rare moment of candor, May rubbed her right shoulder with a frown.

"No rest at all. More and more aching joints and strained muscles."

"Tell me about it… Before I disappeared last year, I had to take two months off because I could barely move my right arm. Neck pains. My physician said my joints were similar to a 70 year-old woman and that I should take a break, live a normal life, settle down."

This had hurt beyond anything, and she still remembered the bile in her throat when she had hissed "And how do I do that when I'm still crying for the man I wanted those things with?"

"Seriously? I hope you dropped his sorry ass."

"You can bet."

Audrey had complained about him to Pepper, a lot. The next day, Tony called back with a new appointment in Los Angeles. The diagnosis didn't change, of course, but the speech surely did. A few weeks later, she was ready to prepare for the fall season and a Rachmaninov sonata.

"Seriously, I don't know how much longer I can go on," May admitted. Audrey looked up from her plate. The agent looked tired. "Too many enhanced individuals… I'm just a martial artist."

"Then stop."

This time, Audrey blurted out the words before she could stop herself, like she had with Phil so many years ago, when he was agonizing about a particular assignment that killed him inside day after day.

May looked down, suddenly fascinated by the half-empty glass. "Andrew's gone… I've been with SHIELD since I was sixteen… I just don't know..."

Audrey swallowed with difficulty. She knew the feeling all too well. She started playing music at four, and since then, it had been the alpha and the omega of her existence, until she met Phil. When she lost him, her career became her life jacket more than ever.

"What about passing the baton to a new generation? Teach them properly?"

So that we can avoid the mistakes from the past.

May's lips moved up, slightly. "Maybe. We won't be here forever anyway."

-/-

The agent-no, the director-walked into her room, an open file in hand. After so many days at the base, listening to the various complaints about the guy who took Coulson's job and his ridiculous color-themed system of lanyards, Audrey was glad that she finally was able to put a face on Jeffrey Mace's name. To be frank, he was quite handsome, dark haired with earnest blue eyes and a square, strong jaw. The way Jeffrey Mace stepped into Audrey's white room, all professional and solemn, felt very familiar too. However, he was a good foot too tall, with far too much hair on his head. And he lacked Phil's natural warmth that immediately soothed her when he showed up on her doorstep so many years ago.

"So, Audrey Nathan, born on October 14th, 1976, Cape Town, South Africa. Resident in the United States since 2003. Deceased on…" His eyes narrowed as he interrupted his reading to observe her. "... on July 20th, 2015 in Oregon."

Audrey sat back on her chair, her arms folded defensively. This was going to be a long conversation.

"If you will excuse me, Ms. Nathan, for a dead person, you look quite…" Director Mace grimaced awkwardly.

So much for playing hard ass.

"Lively?" She finished for him with a smile, deciding that he didn't seem like a bad fellow.

"Well, yes." He smiled back. "Care to fill the blanks?"

It was Audrey's turn to cringe. At times, she wasn't sure that she hadn't lost her mind purely and simply.

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Try me…" Mace's smile widened confidently. That was when it hit her. His aura was similar to Daisy's.

"Because you went through crazy times yourself recently? Like one of these cocoons they talk so much on TV? "

His dumbfounded expression revealed that it wasn't a curveball that he expected at all.

"I see beyond the appearances, that's one of the blanks you might want to fill in."

"And, obviously, you can disappear," he went on, anxious to remain in control of their conversation. "If I believe Agent Coulson's report, you went through all our security detail back in Washington, is that right? That makes you quite the dangerous individual."

This was getting stupid. She uncrossed her arms and leant on the table, her fists clenched.

"To be exact, I can't materialize. That's not the same thing, believe me. And, actually, I'm more worried about the absorbing energy thing. Maybe because I was a victim of it." In her rising anger, Audrey could feel that her words came out more and more rushed, as she reverted to her native accent. "That's in my file, Portland, 2005. I went through severe and unexplained anemia. Turned out it was Daniels' fault. My best friend and orchestra conductor had a terrible accident because the battery of his car suddenly shut out. Turns out Daniels was jealous of him, which is absurd, given the fact said best friend is gay."

Mace raised his hand in an appeasing gesture that only enraged Audrey more. She knew she was being unreasonable. The guy did his job, nothing more.

"Don't you patronize me, Director. I'm damn well conscious of the dangers I represent for the people around me. I don't want to be a vigilante, if it reassures you, and I certainly don't want to use my so-called powers to go on a robbing or killing spree."

The dam was broken. The words came out of her, staccato, and she couldn't stop them. And neither could she stop the tears.

"And you know why? Because I'm a musician. Not a superhero nor an agent or a delinquent. I just want my life back!"

In her anger, Audrey stood up abruptly, knocking her chair back, and stepped away from the table, forgetting that Fitz hadn't completed the Faraday cage yet and only built another one around her bed.

To his credit, Mace didn't look afraid. Instead, he stood up to put her chair back on its feet and waved in what he believed to be her general direction.

"To be honest, you lost me at killing spree, but I can imagine the rest. Why don't you sit down again?"

Hesitantly, Audrey responded to his invitation. Once both were settled again, Mace started to talk in a more pacifying way, visibly struggling to find the right attitude.

"I'm sorry, I'm surely not as good at this kind of thing as Agent Coulson. He wanted to do the assessment himself, but as the Director, I need to keep my agents from mixing professional and personal matters."

He paused, giving her time to process the information, but not enough to think of a reply, like a true politician. He leant further on the table, meeting her eyes without flinching.

"I read your file with attention, Ms. Nathan. You had a career, a life, and you want them back. I understand. But I'm not sure that the public will see the matter as benevolently the day we reveal that the South African cellist Audrey Nathan isn't dead after all..."

Another quick pause.

"Maybe you'll have to envision a new life altogether."

Audrey stood up, and disappeared. As if she never considered the frightening option herself. The only thought of keep on living while leaving her friends ad family in the dark made her sick. Was that what Phil felt all these years?

"And, we can't let you be unsupervised, ever." Mace stood up and walked to the door. "However, I think you'll like the agent I assigned to your supervision. Well, I hope so."


End file.
